Is it You?
by iJobex3
Summary: At a young age Lucy Heartfilia, the daughter of Jude and Layla Heartfilia went off by herself into the woods without anyone knowing. She met a boy around her age and without getting a chance to ask for his name she decided she will marry him. But without any luck of meeting the boy again and with her growing older she forgot about the mysterious young man.
1. Chapter 1: Prologue

**Author's note:**

 **This is my first fan-fiction that I made that I felt like sparing on my free time from my busy schedule.**

 **I do not own these characters.**

* * *

 _ **Prologue: Chapter 1**_

' _At the age of five, I always played alone since there was no other children that lived near me and at a young age letting my curiosity get the better of me when I noticed a forest near my residence. The carriage I happen to ride in past by it._

 _Without any supervisors or anyone's knowledge about my whereabouts, since I have then already fully known that I was forbidden to go anywhere else by myself._

 _Of course being the stubborn child I was, I didn't listen and I ended up rebelling against the rules and boundaries that were bestowed upon my own well-being. I decided to go on a journey thinking what a thrilling adventure I would have, and ignoring the fact on the dangers of what may lay ahead, only to risk my life in the process as I would go on._

 _Inside my white bunny shoulder bag, I've already prepared snacks and a flashlight before setting off into the mysterious woods that I would wander into._

 _It didn't take long until someone from my hometown realizes my disappearance. My father sent out a search party to find me. Hours have since then passed, and it was about to be night time when no one had yet discovered my presence._

 _My journey unexpectedly turned out the wrong way. I was alone in the woods, crying, regretting my choice of ever stepping in and getting myself into this mess. The light was slowly fading, making it harder for me to find my way out._

 _As I continued to walk I found myself near a big lake, as soon as I reach the end of the forest, I came across a young boy. From the looks of it, he probably already knew I was lost. I've given him a rice ball that I took out from my bag._

 _In exchange he showed me the way out repaying my generosity. One of the search party members had finally come in a carriage to my rescue. They ran towards me letting out a sigh of relief that I was safe and sound. One of the crew men put his hands onto my back and escorted me towards the carriage._

 _Suddenly I stopped, **realizing** that I never gotten the young boy's name, not even leaving my goodbye when I turned my head to where he was but he already gone, vanished from sight. _

_And alas, ever since that day time has well enough went by, years going ahead as I slowly but surely, gradually grew older._

 _It was a long time ago when I first met him, the memory of the young boy whom I first fell in love with._

 _Everything seems to be in a blur, I wasn't able to effectively recognize,_ _ **remember,**_ _or_ _ **grasp**_ _the image of the past that occurred years ago._

 _Even though in such a young age I decided to marry the boy that I didn't even know the name of. In high hopes I thought I would be able to meet the young fellow again in parties that I would be invited to or ones that my family held._

 _But in such great disappointment, there was no sign of the mysterious lad. As I began to grow up, still not giving up… Not a single day, weeks, months, and years flew by that I give up on him. Until I turned ten years old that I've slowly_ _ **forgotten**_ _about his own existence…'_

Today was my seventeenth birthday, like every year, I was thrown a big party to celebrate the day of my birth. There was classical music played by professional musicians, people dancing in the center of the room, a big table full of delicious varieties of food, a wide room full of colorful decorations, balloons floating in the air, bodyguards everywhere, and my father's special guests…

Instead of usually enjoying this important opportunity for me, I decided to depart from the scenario, but this time it was different, this wasn't delightful like it was before, and it was just slightly beginning to be obnoxious…

* * *

 **Jude Heartfilia's POV**

"Master!" cried out one of the bodyguards. He came to a stop as he catched his breath from all the running and screaming on his way to the ballroom.

"What is it?" Jude Heartfilia questioned, he turned his head to the servant before him. He stood next to his wife Layla Heartfilia and a couple of the invited guests that came to celebrate their daughter's birthday.

"The young lady..." he manages to catch his breath and tell them the news, "She did it again!"

Jude Heartfilia looked at the man with a furious reaction shown upon his face. The joyous smile he had a few seconds ago disappeared. The wine glass he was holding onto his right hand slipped from his grip, in shock with the sudden change of events.

With the sound of the glass breaking on the polished marble floor, as it was now stained with the color red, the liquid spreading quickly. The loud noise caused the attention of their guests that attended to turn their heads to his position.

Laughters and chatters that once filled the big ball room came to a stop. Along with the musicians coming to a sudden halt from playing their instruments, couples in the middle of the dance floor froze from the noise and silence that striked upon the building everyone was in.

"Luuuucy!" Jude shouted on the top of his lungs.

* * *

 **Lucy's POV**

A blonde haired girl sat on top of the roof on the mansion. She had her hair tied into a bun, and wore a long, slim, sparkling, gorgeous pink lacy dress. It revealed her shoulders and arms. And the only accessories she worn was white shiny pearls as her earrings and necklace.

The roof top was the only area where she could have her peace without anyone disturbing her and her golden silence. Only a few people knew about this when she happens to disappear randomly on some occasions.

"Are you sure you want to stay up here and not join in from your birthday party?" The orange haired boy was squatting next to her as he notices the other body guards at the ground, running around to find the young mistress.

"Yes, there's no way I'm going down there to talk to other men," Lucy said in an annoyed tone. "Besides, I have you and Virgo to keep me company," she grinned, taking the glass of strawberry milk that the maid given her.

"Is it time for punishment, Princess?" The maid questioned.

Lucy slurped on her glass of strawberry milk and sighed. "No Virgo. Unless you mean I'll be hearing it from my father…"

Loke stood up feeling the nice cool breeze that flew at them gently. He placed both of his hands inside his pockets and sighed. "Even though you are forced to look for a bachelor, I'll be more than happy to be the one for you, but other than that, I want you to have a great Happy Birthday."

"Yes, Happy Birthday princess." Virgo said with a face of monotone emotion.

I let out a small chuckle, "Thanks!" and turned my head slowly, looking down below. Relaxing and enjoying the view from where I was sitting.

Loke and Virgo stood in the back beside me. Joining in as they watched the other co-workers were calling out my name everywhere, as we watched them search around, seeking for me.

* * *

 **Layla's POV**

Jude was at it again, scolding our daughter's reckless behavior, we were in his office after the party was over and everyone else that we invited to as our guest, left.

Feeling embarrassed about the fact that other bachelors complained about not having the chance to meet my daughter or gotten a moment to be alone with her, even though it was my daughter's birthday, I think my husband was being a little bit too harsh on her.

"How could you let this happen again Lucy?!" Jude shouted in frustration and slammed both of his fists down onto his desk, "Not only did you disappear on a meeting held last time, you disappeared the whole entire day on your own birthday party!"

Lucy stood straight as she stood there folding her hands together, listening to the lectures that her father was throwing at her, she flicked her eyes towards me, where I stood beside my husband's desk and kept myself quiet, hearing all of Jude's complaints coming from his mouth.

"How many worthy bachelors are you going to reject?" He suddenly said, "You are now at the legal age of getting married to someone, but none of the young men that I introduce you to or invited seems to interest you at all!" Jude paused as he looked down at his desk, as he had documents scattered everywhere of profiles about noble men.

Slowly he then lifts his head up and stared back at our daughter. "All these men you rejected… There must be someone you are interested in at your school, is there?" His tone was serious, as I noticed his palms forming into a ball, as he crumbled and crushed the piece of paper.

Lucy shook her head in disagreement, there wasn't anyone in particular that fancy's her interest. She didn't say a word of it, giving her father only a "no" as her reply.

Layla noticed the tension that Jude was giving off, I placed my hands on his shoulder and said in a calming manner, "Lucy dear, you could go on ahead and take your leave," as soon as I told our daughter that, Jude quickly rose his head and looked at me with a face of this-conversation-isn't-over-yet reaction.

Before my husband could stop our daughter from leaving, I put one of my hands on top of his palms. "Let her be," I whispered to him. "I know for a fact, that she probably forgot about the young boy."

* * *

 **Lucy's POV**

After my warm bath that was prepared by Virgo, I was already dressed up in my pajamas: A sky blue tank top with a star in the middle of the torso, and sky blue shorts. My golden hair was placed down that reached up to my waist, it was still wet a bit.

Virgo came in holding my dog, Plue in her arms. She kneeled down letting the small creature go, as the small guy ran up to me. I embrace the adorable thing and hug it, placing him down on my bed as he tried to find a comfortable spot to lie down and go off into it's deep slumber.

Suddenly, Loke came in and brought out a dusty old treasure chest that he carried on the side of his arms shutting the door behind him. Virgo and I stand there next to each other, looking at him as he made his way towards me.

"What is that Leo?" I tilt my head in confusion as I was wondering why he brought a dirty old chest box into my room out of the blue.

Virgo looked at me with the same expression, as Loke placed the chest down on the table in front of my fireplace.

He looked up at me finally explaining about the sudden situation, "Your mother gave this to me as I was walking around patrolling the area," he looked down at the chest and held it again, "She said she would've done it herself, but your father suddenly called for her. This is your time capsule from when you were younger Lucy," Loke held the big chest in front of me; I slowly extended my arms out to grab the big treasure chest from him.

"Your mom said, you made a promise to yourself, that you will open it on your seventeenth birthday. And that, you lock it up on the attic and forgotten about it as years pass by."

Listening to Loke, I gazed my eyes at the dusty treasure chest I held in my arms. Opening it slowly, I wondered what I hid away for so long inside of it. My eyes widen as I saw what was in front of me.

"My diary…"

I mumbled, it was still in surprisingly good condition. My eyes scanned the other items which caught me in surprise, my old favorite bunny backpack; it was all worn out and filthy. A doll whom I called Michelle, that I received from my parents at a young age along with piles of pictures.

I sat down on my bed beside Plue, placing the chest down on my lap as I collected the pictures scattered inside the chest together in my hands and stacked them.

I flip through it, it was all pictures of my mother, father and I. Also pictures that I took with old servants that use to work for the Heartfilia's household. A smile came across my face when memories came rushing in my mind, feeling nostalgic. Until I flip into the next one. My jaws drop open in shock, one of the images that stood out the most from the rest of them. "Who is this?" I said out-loud.

Loke and Virgo stood in front of me as they watch my reaction changing dramatically. They both wondered what was behind the square print that caused my bewildered expression to come across my face.

Suddenly, I noticed something sparkling from inside the chest, placing the prints down back on the chest, I reach out to the shiny object and pulled it out, flashing it for Virgo and Loke to see.

"A ring?" Loke said first.

"Does this mean you already have someone important, Princess?" Virgo gazed her eyes away from the ring and stared right at me.

My head shook in denial. I studied the ring that I held in the air. The stone was ruby in a heart shape form and the rim was made of real gold.

Questioning myself of the sudden prize I discovered, I wondered how I even obtained it in the first place. I concentrated really hard trying to remember the past and focusing on the memory of receiving this shiny object. But nothing came out that gave me a hint of inheriting this beautiful ring.

"Is that all that's inside of your chest, Princess?" Virgo interrupted her train of thought.

Loke crossed his arms and sighed, "There's probably more that you haven't even discovered yet. That might make you wonder how you got it in the first place,"

I placed the ring and one of the picture prints that caught my attention the most aside to analyze later for myself. Listening to Loke, I went back to look inside the treasure and discovered another unfamiliar item that I did not remember anything about. Taking the other items out one by one and placing them back again, I manage to grab the necklace out from the bottom. It came to my attention when I notice how the necklace seemed to glow for some apparent reason.

The sudden change of color startled Loke, which alarmed him quickly. Thinking that it was something harmful, he immediately snatches the item away from me before something horrible might've happened, his sudden reflex causes me to flinch.

"I don't know what this thing might be, but I have to take a look at this item before I hand it back to you." He pushed his glasses up on his nose as he spoke out in a serious tone.

Before I could say anything, Virgo nodded and places her voice on top of mine, "It's for your own safety, Princess."

I watched as Loke shoved the glowing necklace inside one of his pockets as I pouted not having the chance of being able to take a better glimpse of it before it was taken away.

"Well then, it's time for us to leave so you could get some rest," Loke turned around as he walked away towards the door, before he took his leave with Virgo tailing behind him, he reassured me, "Don't worry, once I finish examining this necklace I'll be sure to give it back to you once I know it's safe, good night." He didn't bother to turn his head but instead left out of the room.

Virgo bowed down before leaving my chambers, "Good night princess, sleep well." She said and gently closed the door.

Leaving me behind there by myself on the bed with Plue, I let out a heavy sigh and rolled my eyes towards the two other mysterious items that I laid beside me. Before I put away the big treasure chest, I took out the diary that still maintained in a very fairly good condition. The cover of it was still clean with a smooth cover image of cherry blossoms.

"I should put these three aside and take a better look at them tomorrow… Right now I got to get ready for school tomorrow…" I whispered to myself. Before I turned off the lights I took a quick glimpse at the picture that still bothered me.

A picture of a little boy that seems similar to my age that smiled next to me in the print.


	2. Chapter 2: The necklace & the dream

**Chapter 2: The necklace and the dream.**

' _The sight of the woods_ _ **abruptly showed up**_ _in my dreams. Not realizing the more I walked down into the deeper parts of the forest; it was_ _ **leading me towards my past**_ _. It was still broad daylight as I continued to stay along the path with a feeling so familiar, it was like a_ _deja vu_ _._

 _Suddenly my body shrinks back into the size of a toddler, still continuing on to walk and found myself lost in the dark forest, slowly my fears came creeping back to me, frightened of the fact I couldn't find my way out as my eyes started to get watery and my body was trembling. (This part of the memory was all forgotten, I thought of it as a dream only, not realizing that I was having flashbacks of the past that occurred long ago.)_

 _I watched as the smaller version of myself came across a young boy. He was sitting near the water as he heard rustles coming from the bushes and prepared himself to get ready to pounce onto the creature, instead it turned out to be a mere human; me._

 _Refraining from the ambush he notices the tears that rolled down my cheeks. I stopped sobbing, relieved to find someone other than myself all alone. The young boy sat back down as he pouted, I heard his stomach grumbling loudly like the cries of a whale._

" _Man, am I hungry!" He whined, letting out a sigh come out from his mouth. "I thought you were a wild animal or something… There goes my chance of hunting food…" he growled._

 _The small blonde stared at the young boy who sat down, awfully bothered from the roaring growls coming out from his gut. I sat myself down beside the boy, taking off my backpack and dug my hands through it. Reaching my hands out to him, I placed the ball of rice in front of him, "Here, it's not much… I made it myself, its odd looking but it's edible" I smiled._

 _He looked at me with a plain expression, and suddenly a big grin came across his face._

" _Thanks!" he chomped down the rice ball and devoured it with one gulp that surprised me._

 _Seeing that he was still not satisfied, I gave him the remaining leftovers inside my bag. I shivered as the wind blew, and realizing the darkness that was now arising. "I got to get home…" I muttered to myself._

 _The boy munched down on the rice ball and gulped it all down, as he did the same for the next. Hearing the words I uttered out from the whispers that came out from my mouth he grabbed my hands and yanked me up as he pulled me along with him and began to walk._

" _Where are we going?" I asked in curiosity._

" _We are taking you back home, where else?" he turned his head to me and smiled._

 _Along the walk we took, the forest was getting darker and creepier. I wasn't able to calm down from the anxiety that overwhelmed me. The boy still held on to my hand and never bothered to let go to which and then slowly eased me down._

" _When's the next time we could meet up?" he asked._

" _Huh? I don't think I can, by the time I get back, I'll be hearing it from my father, since I left my home without anyone knowing where I would be…" I frowned._

" _Well that's not good," he said, we then came to a stop and then places an item to my small frail and fragile hands._

 _Without being able to look at it because of the lack of light within the forest, I immediately shoved the small object inside my bag whilst the boy took my other free hand and continued to drag me along the trail. As soon as we found our way out, I could see the moon light already shining above in the night sky._

" _Here you go! Now you can finally get back home," he smiled._

 _From all the things that occurred, I wasn't able to see his face clearly, it was all a blur. I didn't know who he was.'_

* * *

 **Lucy's POV**

There was an opening from the window curtain that allowed the sunlight's ray from outside to enter inside the dark room of my chamber. It shone brightly on to my face once it had strike upon my sleeping slumber. I groaned and turned my whole body the other way, placing one of my fluffy pink pillows on top of my head to prevent the sunlight to hit me once more. Out of nowhere, the curtains had suddenly flash open and spread apart by two individuals that had quietly made their way inside my room.

"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty!" Loke said loud and clear, fixing the window curtains from the right side of my bed.

In the opposite side of the bed was Aries, she turned towards me after fixing the curtains, "Please wake up, it's time for school. I'm sorry for waking you up from your beauty sleep…!"

 _Knock Knock._

Behind the door was Virgo arriving with Lucy's breakfast, "Princess, I prepared you your omelet," she said as she walks towards the bed carrying the tray in her hands.

I sat up slowly, rubbing my eyes. Plue was stretching out his body right next to me and came running towards Aries, jumping into her open arms.

"I-I'll be taking care of Plue while you are gone…" Aries stuttered.

I looked up as Virgo place the tray on top of my lap, thanking her and began to eat the food on my plate on a faster pace, so I would have time to get dress.

"I wasn't able to take a good look on the necklace last night Lucy. But once I do get a chance to analyze it I'll give it back to you like I said," Loke looked at me as I ate my breakfast in my queen size bed. "But no promises guaranteed that you will get it back in advanced. Just for safety reasons—"

"I wouldn't be able to get it back if it's something that would risk me into danger," I interrupted him, "Am I right?"

Loke chuckled, "It's my job," giving me a wink as a sign that I was correct, as a matter of fact, it was common sense after all. He did work as a bodyguard.

After finishing up with my breakfast I hurried into the shower. Loke stand guard in my room, not taking advantage of the opportunity to walk in on me while I bathe. Virgo was also in the room firmly fixing up my bed and taking out the tray back to the kitchen as Plue followed her.

Once I have washed myself clean and fresh, Aries had lent me a vanilla colored towel to dry myself with. She already had my uniform prepared as she held the soft fabric. "My apologies for intruding in, I have your uniform and the under garments for you…"

"Thanks Aries," I grinned.

I grabbed my under garments from her and put them on then quickly slip into the clothing; I buttoned up my white short-sleeve shirt, a red skirt that reaches above my knees, white ankle socks and black shoes.

Drying my drenched goldilocks hair, I walked out of the bathroom with Aries tailing behind me who hesitated as usual. Seeing Loke standing beside Cancer with all his hair equipment prepared, "You got a few more minutes before it's time to leave," Loke announced lifting up his arm to take a quick glimpse on his watch. "Good thing Cancer got here in time,"

I toss my towel to Aries who said in her cute low voice of hers, "I hope you have a great day in school, Lucy…"

I smiled at her and gave her a thumb up, "I will!"

Aries formed a small smile on her face and turned around to exit my room leaving Cancer, Loke, and I.

Cancer stood a few inches away from me, smelling the scent that came from my hair as he combed it. "Your hair smells really nice, like Vanilla ebi," He was my hairstylist whenever I have to get ready for school or during a special occasion. "You grow up to be a real fine lady, ebi," he sighed.

Loke took a quick look at his watch again and shoved his hands in his pocket. "Hey, not to interrupt but you'll be late for class if you continue on with the chit-chats," he reminded me.

I flicked my eyes at Loke just remembering that I'll be running late, I tilt my head quickly to my side and glanced at the clock that was standing a few feet away from my fireplace. "Shoot! I wouldn't be able to have the time to look through the things from last night!" I thought to myself, panicking. I pulled away from Cancer after he finishes combing the last few strings of my golden hair. Quickly I rush to get the three items that sat on the table beside my bed and put them inside my bag. "Thank you for your time Cancer!" I shouted, and I began to storm out of my room with Loke running behind me.

"Are you going to change before school start?" I ask him as I reach the staircase and carefully rush down the steps.

"Probably I'll change in the car," Loke grinned. "So you could see me,"

I raised my right eyebrow up and face palmed, "Isn't Capricorn going to be the driver, he's always the one taking us to school anyways…"

"Yeah, you're right. But that doesn't stop me from changing in the same car with you," Loke chuckled.

As soon as we both reached down the stairs, I noticed Layla, my mother walking in solitude. I gave her a quick peak on the cheeks catching her off guard,

"Oh!" she yips,

"Bye mom! See you later!" I waved to her whilst I continued to run, now tailing behind Loke.

"Both of you have good day in school!" she sighed as a smile came across her face.

Loke and I made our way out of the front entrance of the door, we rush down the few steps of the stairs and got entered the black luxurious car that was waiting on the drive way.

Capricorn was our assigned driver everywhere we go. "Ah, Lucy-sama. You both made it in time," he said as he started to drive off.

When moments flew by, I gazed out of my window, sitting in the left side of Loke and behind Capricorn. I notice the familiar forest that we passed by that made an appearance in my dream. Speaking about dreams I pondered if it had any meaning behind it. Eventually I was having a debate with myself whether or not it was real. "Was that the little boy from the picture?" I muttered to myself.

Loke turned his head at me, "Did you say something?" he questioned.

"No! No! I'm just thinking out-loud!" I exclaimed.

Along the way to school, the car ride was quiet. My head was somewhere else still thinking about the ring, necklace, picture, and diary including the dream. Before I even realized that minutes had past already, we were already onto our destination; The Academy of Fairy Tail.

" _Lu…." … "Lucy…." …. "Lucy-sama!"_

I jolt as I finally came back down to earth from my wonders that got me to doze off into space. Quickly rolling my eyes at Capricorn who was looking at his front mirror and staring right at me, "We are here Lucy-sama,"

"We been calling your name for a while now, how long do you plan to stay in the car?" Loke said, he was bending down to look inside the car; he was already standing outside, still wearing his suit.

"Ah, whoops!" I let out a small laugh and apologize to Capricorn. He left after Loke and I went off towards the campus.

"Well, I'll see you around Lucy. I got to go change into my uniform. See you!" I waved goodbye to Loke as he took off to a different direction.

 _ **This is the Academy of Fairy Tail.**_

 _ **We are split into four different grade levels of the school; Kindergarten, Elementary, Middle school, and High School.**_

 _ **Our buildings are apart from each grade level, but all of them share the school campus and cafeteria. The other Academies are equally the same the only difference among them are their rules made up in there school grounds.**_

"Hey Lucy!" a feminine voice called out to me. When I turned my head around it was no other than my close friend Levy Mcgarden. She was stomping her feet as she walked her way towards me with her hands forming into a fist.

"Where in the world did you freaking go yesterday!?" she burst out screaming before I could even utter a word of hello to her. There were a few people that walked past by us that over-heard our conversation and made their way pass us feeling awkward.

"You literally just left me hanging all alone in the ballroom!" She complained. "How dare you just leave me like that!" she continued on,

"I was all by myself until Yukino had come along, thank goodness!" she let out a deep sigh, "I wasn't able to sing you Happy Birthday either!"

"Sorry about that Levy…" I said as a sweat drop raced down my cheeks, "I could explain what happened…"

"You better! I want to hear all of it!" Levy grumbled.

The both of us walked beside each other heading directly to our homeroom. A pink haired boy happened to be passing by us from the opposite direction along with his friends; Gray Fullbuster and Gajeel Redfox.

"Oi, Lucy!" he called out.

I looked away from Levy seeing his dark onyx eyes staring right at me, "Good morning Natsu!" I smiled.

* * *

 **Natsu's POV**

There I was watching the golden long hair beauty that sparkled through my perspective, walked away with her blue-haired friend; Levy. Letting out a deep sigh escape from my lips, I heard my friends having a conversation about her, "Man, her hair sure did grow long those past years hasn't it?"

"Yeah, she does look different," The piercing man nodded his head with an agreement.

I glanced at my two friends and flicked my eyes back at the blonde girl. "She did bloom a lot," I thought to myself.

"Hey Natsu, we better get going before Erza starts patrolling the hall way again," Gray sneered.

"There's no way I'm going to get another detention, it's f**king boring in there," Gajeel growled, "Last time I tried to bring my cat over, but one of the damn teachers told me no pets allowed in school campus. I flip the teacher off and told him to go f**k himself when he said Lily was bad luck which caused me to get detention. Just because of those myths saying black cats brings misfortune to people,"

"Why the heck did you even bring your exceed to campus in the first place..?" Gray face palmed.

Gajeel snap, "I wanted him to see the school! Is there a problem with that?!"

Gray sighed, "During school hours seriously? You don't see Happy roaming around…" he came to a sudden halt as him and Gajeel spotted Natsu talking to Happy that happened to be hiding in the bushes.

"Yo, little buddy!" Natsu grinned.

"Natsu!" Happy shouted, "I came again to explore your school!"

"Again?!" Gray quoted in shock.

Gajeel smirked, "Hehe, See, I'm not the only one," he crossed his arms looking at Natsu and his blue-cat exceed.

Suddenly the bush right next to Happy started to rustle and a female white-fur cat appeared next to him.

"He-cat, I do suppose you know that it's almost time for them to walk along and head to class right?" The elegant cat reminded him.

Gray once again face-palmed, witnessing the scene in front of him, "Wendy's exceed too…" He said in a low tone.

"Hey, I should've brought my cat!" Gajeel complained.

The blue cat continued to swipe talks with Natsu and Carla, until somebody came creeping towards them. Alerting the female cat, she pulled Happy along with her as their face disappeared out of sight.

"Why are the three of you still lingering about, outside school campus?!" A strong furious voice called out.

* * *

 **Levy's POV**

"So you left your own birthday party to get away from every bachelor that your father invited, and at the end you got in trouble, is that what you are trying to say?" Levy said as she continued to throw more questions at her best friend who sat in front of her.

Before Lucy could say anything, they heard a voice shouting in the hallways until the door to their classroom was wide open, revealing the three boys and a senior female student. Everyone turned their heads at them.

"This will be the last time you three!" The female student warned them.

"Yeah.. Yeah…" Gajeel growled.

Natsu, Gray and Gajeel walked towards their seat as Erza watched them with her arms crossed. Her face was furious as it slowly disappeared when she notice Lucy and I sitting next to the window seat. Natsu, Gray and Gajeel's assigned seat happened to be the empty seats next to us. Natsu's desk was next to Lucy as Gray was behind him, and Gajeel sat behind me.

Lucy and I turned our heads and saw that Erza was now standing in front of Lucy's desk, giving off a nice vibe and a friendly smile. "I see you two behaving as you should be," she stated. "Expected from the two of you of course,"

Both of us chuckled until suddenly the three boys clicked their tongues that ruined our bubbly moment, causing the atmosphere around Erza to dramatically change by the second. It was all sweet at first, now it was back to a murderous killer vibe. Making all of us cringe as electricity ran up on our spine.

"Unlike you boys, I also expect you to change that behavior of yours and follow the same routine as your fellow classmates here," referring to Lucy and me.

' _ **Erza is a grade level higher than us. She is the high school's student president whom takes her work seriously and does her best at anything. She has a strong determination to accomplish things without giving up, thou, she does have a strict side of her personality. But she's a really nice person. You wouldn't want to get in her bad side or get yourself involved in any trouble. She has known Gray and Natsu since they were in elementary along with some other childhood friends.**_ _'_

As soon as Erza finish lecturing the boys she snaps her head back at us with a sweeter expression. "Also before I leave, I just want to say Happy Belated birthday to you Lucy."

I noticed that this caught the boys' attention while Lucy thanked Erza for the late birthday greeting. We watch as the high school's president exit her way out of the classroom.

"Man, I wonder how Jellal handles a woman like her." Gajeel suddenly brought up as none of us had an answer to that, which also made us wonder the same thing. Lucy and I let out a deep sigh while Natsu and Gray just shrug off the thought of it.

"Anyways, Happy belated birthday Lucy," Gray said as he changed the subject to her.

Gajeel leaned back on his chair and place both of his feet on the wooden desk, "Yeah like what he said,"

"How did it go?" Natsu ask as he joined the conversation.

The boys all looked at Lucy as they waited for her to speak up and respond back to the question. Instead she let out a deep sigh, making me do all the explaining that I already know for myself from what I heard.

"Get married in such a young age?!" Gajeel shouted in surprise as he almost lost his balance, he slammed one of his hands on top of his desk and stomped his feet down on the ground. Surprise from the sudden smack sound, I let out a small yip.

Gray's jaw drop wide open, "Woah. Seventeen and pregnant?! Hah. You got to be joking right!" he groaned, "I think that's a little bit too soon to be thinking of settling down with someone at this kind of age,"

"Have you picked someone yet or something" Natsu said calmly, placing his elbow on his desk and his closed close fist pressing against his cheeks.

All of us eyed the blondie who sat there shaking her head, "No but," she paused, we watch her take something out from her school backpack, a small book, probably a diary and dug out another item, a golden ruby ring. This made me confuse.

"Okay blondie, that is way out of the blue." Gajeel groaned.

"What's with the ring though?" Gray asks.

"Do you already have someone Lucy?" I ask with curiosity speaking in a straight forward manner.

Natsu sat there quietly on his chair, staring at the blonde who was placing her hands on top of the cover of her diary,

"No I don't have someone but I feel like there is, but I don't know…" She responded to me, but I wasn't sure about her weird response.

Lucy then turned her head towards Gray, "I found it inside a treasure chest that Loke brought to me last night and…."

Before we could hear the complete sentence Lucy was interrupted when our homeroom teacher came barging into class. Leaving us dumbfounded, all of us wondered why Loke was even brought up in the first place. Making us think that Loke was the one who propose to her.

"Gildarts sensei," one of the students shouted. "What took you so long?!"

The students started to question his whereabouts, increasing the sound that echoed around the room.

"Alright! Alright! Sorry for being late, I had a meeting with the principal; Makarov. Now let's begin class, starting with roll call!" Gildarts took out a list of names and started right away with attendants.

Looking at my side, I notice Natsu still eyeing on Lucy whom raise her hands when her name was called out. Next to me, I also notice Gray staring right at her too.

* * *

 **Gray's POV**

Even the sound of marriage and ending a happily life to be with the person you love may seem nice. But, at this kind of age, it's kind of way too soon to even think about settling down. Giving up your entire life to a commitment holds a lot of responsibility…

My thoughts continued on like an endless road track, I didn't realize the whole entire class time I had my eyes set on Lucy Heartfilia, I was concentrating more on her instead of having my mind focus on Gildarts valuable lessons that he took seriously most of the time. Nevertheless, his class was pretty dull anyways, he always end up shouting out the answer and giving us another question if it was answered incorrectly. This led to the majority of us to give up.

As the clock ticks by, it came to the end of class. When everyone was preparing to leave to their next period I notice a square print slipping out of the blondie's backpack which swayed and landed next to my shoe. I extended my arms out to grab it, looking at the image of a little boy smiling who stood next to a little girl beside him with blonde short hair in pigtails. The boy who was wearing a blue hat caught my attention as it left me speechless.

Without calling out to Lucy, however, Gajeel happened to witness everything, "Whattya got there, eh?"

Levy, Natsu, and Lucy turned their heads at my direction to see what was up. The blonde realize the picture print I was holding onto as she took it away from my grasp. My eyes widen as I looked at her, "No wonder…" I whispered.

* * *

 **Loke's POV**

It was already lunch time as I walked off by myself around the campus to look for a peaceful place without anyone coming to me with any disturbances. This campus was filled with a lot of kids.

We happened to have the same lunch time with the middle schoolers. The kindergarten starts first, then next elementary school kids. Just so the little kids wouldn't be mix up in the crowds with the ones older than them.

Once I found a perfect spot for me to go off and ponder, I climbed up to one of the trees with a branch that was strong enough to have someone sit on it for hours. Digging one of my hands into my pocket, I took out the necklace that Lucy found which I brought with me to school.

I thought it'll be a great time for me to observe this accessory while I have the whole entire lunch time to do so. Honestly I wasn't even sure if I would've had the chance to take a look at this stone later on, since I have patrolling duties and other responsibilities that filled up my busy schedule. One of them was watching over the Heartfilia's daughter so the incident that happened years ago wouldn't repeat again.

Still holding onto the stone necklace, I held it up high in the air, as the sun reflected on it. My curiosities build up rapidly as I wondered about its mysterious glow that happened last night.

"It's not glowing like it did before, probably it was just my imagination?" I said to myself.

After a moment, I shook my head in denial,

"No, even Virgo and Lucy saw it too, with their own two eyes. It surely wasn't my imagination at all…" I grind my teeth and continued to question myself with answers I could not find,

"How did it suddenly glow like that? It's not glowing with me, but maybe if Lucy is nearby it would've glowed?"

Suddenly the image of Lucy sitting next to me this morning in the car came to mind. Sighing heavily, "That's not it either. It would've shone brightly when it was still in my pocket with the presence of Lucy next to me…" I shoved the necklace back into my pocket and said out in frustration,

"Maybe if Lucy touches this stone it'll glow like last night? I don't know if this might be risky…" I let out a groan and leaned back on the tree as I watched rows of fluffy looking clouds floating in the sky.

Time was passing by, and I was still sitting on one of the branches on top of the tree. Without realizing it, the stone was glowing brightly inside my pocket but I was distracted of the sight before me and admiring the scenario.


	3. Chapter 3: The necklace & the dream (2)

**Chapter 3: The necklace and the dream (part 2)**

A few days have already passed by after the incident of my birthday. Loke still held on to the stone necklace. I haven't seen him around since the other day at school; he was already occupied with a list of responsibilities he had to accomplish that filled up his schedule.

It was now sunset.

As for me, I was taking a stroll in my mother's favorite garden by myself. When I have decided to rest and take a nap under the shades below a row of trees. Slowly my heavy eye lids close, I found myself in a comfortable position that allowed me to fall asleep in a deep slumber.

' _My_ _ **dream appeared to be real again**_ _, which made it_ _ **hard for me to tell if I was dreaming or not**_ _. I was visiting a beach hut that looked similar to the ones that my family owns._

 _As I turned my head to look around, the setting occurred when we reached the destination of the beach, there was a load of cars that parked in the lot. I was standing right next to a black luxurious car. I noticed my reflection that mimics my every movement. I was a small timid little girl with short hair that reaches to my shoulders with one pony tail. I wore a light yellow summer dress, and open sandals that revealed my tiny toes._

" _Ah, you are Lucy aren't you?" a voice from behind me said._

 _I turned my head to the direction of the voice, I didn't know who it was since it was dark outside in the dims of my dream. It_ _ **blocked**_ _ **my chances**_ _of me to be able to reveal his face. But I watched as the little version of myself went up to the boy and coming towards his embrace, cheerfully._

" _We_ _ **meet**_ _again!" I cried out._

" _I knew it was you!" he grinned._

 _Suddenly he grabbed my hands and passed on an item to me. From the texture of it, it was round. Looking down to see what it was, "_ _ **A ring..?**_ _"_

 _Glancing back at the boy, he leaned close to my face and kissed me on the cheeks, "And this,_ _ **it's a promise**_ _."_

 _My eyes widen as fireworks suddenly came shooting up in the dark starry sky. Bursting into the air and sparkling with different colors, as it slowly falls and fades out.'_

* * *

 **Layla's POV**

Inside the mansion, the purple haired maiden knocked on the door that was in front of her. She waited for a respond, standing there for a few minutes as no one answered.

Opening the door that creaked into the daughters of the Heartfilia's room, there was no sight of the young mistress, "Princess?" Virgo took a peek inside the dark room and wondered where her majesty has gone off to.

Inside my husband's office, I stood there a few feet away in front of his desk. As for Jude, he was standing behind the wooden table facing his back towards me; he was gazing out the window and looking out at the view of our property.

"Our daughter has finally reached the age of being legal to get married. And as for being a noble class, and someone to take my place for my business, we need Lucy to give birth to a son, or her husband to control over my position,"

Jude and I have been having this discussion for quite a while now. Including those times when we had these conversations before her birthday. I was highly against the thought of my daughter being married by force without having any real feelings or love towards the man.

"Even if this is supposed to be traditional and pass on into the line of the Heartfilia's generations, I do not approve of this; I wouldn't want Lucy to get married without being able to experience the real thing of being in love, Jude. This is not fair for our daughter. She has a choice. Allow her to have the freedom to pick," I confessed to him.

My husband didn't turn around to look at me, but he remained silent. I still held my head up high, not even moving a muscle. I had my hands tangled together, waiting for him to speak. Several minutes went by still awaiting for a response, alas, he managed to make up his mind and turned to face me after thirty minutes of our time pass.

"Alright, I'll invite the other noble men into our palace to meet our daughter. And hopefully, she'll be able to pick one and fall in love with one of them," Jude said as he continued to explain his part, "It wouldn't be a party, but bringing them to stay at our place, and from there we will see what will happen,"

A frown came upon my face as I listened carefully to what my husband had to say. Therefore, I was highly disappointed that Jude still did not understand what I meant for allowing our daughter to pick for her own freedom; not having to select upon the bachelor's he chose himself.

But he had admitted that he clearly understood what I've said. For me, I think he failed to catch the message behind the words which filtered wrongly in his mind.

"I'll have a list of other men prepared once I have taken a look in their background profile and from there... We will pull Lucy aside from other activities."

I listened to my husband as he still continued on to talk about his plans he had arranged without any of my confirmation to agree about the events he made for himself. But I have chosen to remain silent then to continue on arguing about it any longer with Jude. My hope only goes to Lucy, with whatever options she picked that falls upon her. It was way beyond my power to break the family's rightful tradition that was passed down throughout the generation.

* * *

 **Loki's POV**

Inside the chambers of the young mistress dark room, I have carried Lucy back after finding her laying on the grass of the garden. I have laid my highness down on the Princess style bed. Grabbing the soft fabric of the blanket, I slowly placed it on top of her cold body that finally stop trembling.

When I looked down, I notice Plue looking back at me from the ground. The little guy raised up his palms signaling me. I smiled and lift the small guy from the floor and placed him on the bed beside Lucy. He too went off into a deep sleep after he found a comfortable spot.

My schedule was filled up with jobs that were thrown at me. Without complaining about it, I went out of my way to complete those tasks. There's still more remaining that I have not yet accomplish, but I found time to visit Lucy until Virgo had announced she wasn't in her room. That's when I ran off to go look for her. This girl… She does know how to worry people.

Reaching deep into my pocket, I took out the necklace that hasn't glowed for a long time now. In conclusion, I decided to place the stone on Lucy's palms and see if it were to shine brightly like it did before. I put the necklace in her hands whilst she was still sleeping. A sweat came rolling down my face as I thought it might be risky, but I stood there for a few more minutes.

Nothing happened.

I heard the sound of Plue and Lucy breathing soundly. Scratching the back of my head I continued to wait for another five minutes for something to happen. "That's weird?" I whispered.

I took the necklace from her palms gently. Lucy happened to move her hands on top of her chest and turned her head. Rolling my eyes back at the stone that I lift up in front of my face, "It didn't glow when she held it… I don't understand…" I whispered.

Slowly walking my way out of the dark room, I close the door gently that leads to Lucy's chambers, and entering the lights of the hallway. I pushed my glasses on my nose and walked towards the direction of the stairs. My head was filled with so many questions that I couldn't find answers to, which was slowly giving me a headache no matter how much I continued to think of theories that might solved the mysterious reasons of the stone that I carry with me in my pocket.

Making my way down the stairs and still lost in confusion inside my head, I came across with Miss Layla. She was a generous, and a wonderful lady. The woman was wearing a comfy looking robe and fluffy slippers, which was odd to see her in. I would usually see her dressed up, so this was out of the ordinary for me. In her hands were folders with documents in it, that she held on her chest tightly, which caught my attention. For sure I thought this was more requests that was assigned for me to do. But this was another case…

She looked at me and suddenly smiled, "Good, I found you. Here," she said, handing me the piece of documents.

I opened the folder filled with piles of papers in it. It showed pictures of noble men's and their background information that was listed all over. Flipping through the papers, my thoughts of the necklace had already disappeared.

Layla was astonish as she pointed out something, "Leo, what's that shining in your pocket?" she ask.

Quickly I looked down to see the same _**color of red**_ that happened the other night, flashing before my eyes. Questions in my head came racing back, "How is it shining like this? Why is it doing this all?"

Behind Layla stood a young man, he came to a stop before proceeding to the next step of the stairs. His sudden approach alarmed me. "You…!" I uttered out, gasping in shock.

* * *

 **Gray's POV**

Sitting beside my window of my room, I was twirling a cap around with the tip of my index finger. My mind was still thinking of the printed picture that the blonde had taken away from my hand.

[Referring back from Chapter 2]

" **When I reach out to grab it, I notice the image of the little boy smiling; he was next to a little girl with blonde short hair. The boy who was wearing a blue hat caught my attention as I was speechless**."

The image was still glued into my mind, for that was the only thing that had never left my thoughts. I kept twirling around the **same blue hat** that was **shown** on the picture.

A **flashback** came up in my mind as I **remembered a blonde haired girl** throwing herself on me and hugging me from behind. When I turned my head around she looked at me with great **disappointment**.

"Gray," said a voice that knocked on my door. My father; Silver Fullbuster, came walking in.

I didn't moved or think about standing up because his presences was standing before me or holy and behold that he was a high rank that I must show him respect for his title. No. To me, he was no other guy but my father. I resumed back to what I was doing, looking out of the window seeing water sprinkling from the dark cloudy sky and twirling the hat that I have not put down.

"This may seem so sudden, but there's something that I have to talk to you about," Silver cleared his throat.

My attention was still gazing out the window of my room, with my ears wide open to listen of the news that he was soon going to announce to me, "I've had recently gotten a message from the higher rank of the names of _**Heartfilia**_ ," he paused.

The name caught my attention, making my eyes grow wide; I tilted my head to face my father. He was all dress in his formal attire, which told me he just gotten back from his business trip.

"I am fully aware that Jude's daughter attends the same academy that you go to, Lucy Heartfilia," he cross his arms and closed his eyes. "The reason why I stand here in front of you now, is to inform you about the sudden request, I hope you already known that she had her birthday held days ago, which she is legalize to be in the right age to get married,"

From the looks of it, I already knew where this conversation was heading, I stop twirling the cap that came to a stop on the tip of my finger, "Just spit it out old man," I said.

He sighed, "I know you'll usually leave this kind of subject once it's brought up. Since over the past years you've declined to meet up with any female bachelorette's and wonder off somewhere," Silver opened his eyes and glared right at me, "You'll be one of the electors that participate on this since you been chosen upon request from Jude Heartfilia. Along with the other nobles who were selected, you'll be staying at their residences until the young mistress picked among all of you to be her _**groom**_."

Gray looked at his father in shock. Out of all the times that I've rejected on having an arrange marriage, I was forced onto this taking my freedom away. But for some reason, secretly inside, I didn't mind about it at all. Honestly, I thought that just playing along with this would be interesting, since from what I heard, in school the other day, Levy explained that Lucy was running away from the bachelor's that came to attend her birthday.

Letting out a laugh, Silver looked at me with disbelief. Grinning at him, I nodded my head, "Alright, I'll take part in this."

* * *

 **Lucy's POV**

Lately I have been getting more dreams that I couldn't quite comprehend about the story behind it. Each situation that occurred left me hanging.

Earlier I felt myself floating in the air, drifting somewhere, I was aware that I was still sleeping.

My body was cold as I traveled down the endless path of the dark alley in my dreams. It felt like hours had passed by and I still haven't found a way out. Until I was now giving up and slowly collapsing down.

Suddenly I was falling; my body stiffens up, frozen. I wasn't able to scream or utter out anything. I was just quickly falling into the darkness of nowhere.

Behind me, I was suddenly embraced by two muscular arms that wrapped around my waist.

" _Are you okay now_?" the voice of the shadow figure said.

My surroundings now appeared to be bright, and fluffy looking clouds around me like it was heaven. "Who are you…?" I ask.

The man whom stood behind me did not allow me to turn my head towards him. Instead he rests his chin on my shoulder as he whispered into my ears and wrapped my fingers onto his.

" _Don't tell me you already forgotten about me_ ,"

My eyes widen as I was flustered by those lines,

" _I haven't forgotten about you Lucy, I sealed it with a promise after all_ ,"

When I turned around to take a glimpse of his face, he was slowly disappearing from me. I shouted out, "Wait!" not having the chance to question him any further.

Forgetting that it was just a dream, I was sitting up and gasping for air. Looking around I realize I was back in my room. Hearing the sounds of my clock tower ticking, and Plue who lay down nearby was peacefully snoozing.

"I could still feel his touch," I whispered under my breath. Looking down on my hands and now hugging myself, I whimpered, "Am I _**forgetting**_ something? I don't understand…"

Tears had suddenly burst out from my eyes that I couldn't make up the reason why they kept on coming out. My heart felt like it was being squeeze inside of me, making it harder for me to breath. "What's wrong with me..?"

Behind the shadows of the figure that was cast behind the entrance of Lucy's door was a young man, he had heard the whimpers that the girl was making in her room, "I guess I woke you up didn't I Lucy?"


	4. Chapter 4: Lucy's research

**Chapter 4: Lucy's research**

Lucy was sitting in front of her working desk; she was reading one of the pages on her diary.

The scenarios that appeared in her dreams were a distraction that had made her forgotten about the three objects that she discovered days ago.

In her diary she had read events that had occurred when she was little, but none of them had specify about the ring, picture print and the necklace stone.

I didn't bring anything up about the stone since I assumed that Loke was being drained out from the piles of requests that were sent his way.

When I turned into the next page, I have found something reading along the lines…

' _ **February 25**_ _ **th**_ _ **X786,**_

 _ **When I safely returned home, Mama and Papa were relief to see me.**_

 _ **Everyone was worried. I apologize to all of them for the trouble I caused.**_

 _ **But, Papa had been really strict forward on. Now, I have bodyguards that will follow me everywhere I go. Watching me as I do my studies, school, and guarding behind the bathroom door.**_

 _ **I was still able to have my privacy…**_

 _ **This doesn't bother me thou, since I was able to have people around even if they were just guards. But what I was more concerned was the necklace that the boy given me.**_

 _ **We did not know each other or close to being friends. So, why did he suddenly give me this necklace?**_

 _ **It sure is a pretty stone. I have never seen anything like it before.**_

 _ **A lot of the servants were astonished to see a rare one like this. Mainly because it's a legendary stone or so they say…**_

 _ **I'm hoping that I'll be able to see the boy again. Maybe I'll see him around the village, or not.'**_

I've reach the end of the part and thought to myself, "Legendary stone huh," I lifted up my left hand and put it under my chin, "I better go to the library and find out more about this,"

As I stood up, I carried the small diary with me that remained opened to where I left off. Exiting out my chambers, I walked through the halls. Flipping into the next page of the small book, I continued on to read and skip the ones that didn't seem to be important.

' _ **August 15**_ _ **th**_ _ **X786,**_

 _ **Months had past and I still haven't found the boy. I'm slowly thinking that he was a ghost that died around that area of the forest. Its soul still lingers and is probably looking for something?**_

 _ **I have been attending parties and going around the village along with the bodyguards hired by my Dad.**_

 _ **There wasn't enough information for me to tell the citizens since I barely knew the boy myself, so just my luck, they weren't able to help.**_

 _ **I thought showing them the stone would do any good, but it turns out every individual I ask, had the same reaction. Countless of times I been questioned how I obtained it.**_

 _ **They weren't able to tell me the folktale behind the stone, since they were scared off by my guards. In their eyes they thought I was being harassed…**_

 _ **Anyways, I'm still going to search for him and I wouldn't give up just yet.'**_

"Wow, I was a stubborn brat wasn't I? But who am I kidding, I still am," I let out a small giggle and flipped through the next page.

' _ **November 25**_ _ **th**_ _ **X786,**_

 _ **All those months I still continued to look for him. And today I finally did.**_

 _ **We were invited to have dinner at one of my dad's business partner.**_

 _ **Like always, my curiosity rapidly build up as soon we arrived. Their mansion was bigger than mines. I decided to explore the place after I introduce myself. Leaving my parents sight, I have left without their permission.**_

 _ **The decorations of their home interested me that I couldn't help myself. I somehow end up in their rose garden, exploring out of nature. There was a fountain that had the statue of a mermaid; Aquarius. She held into her small vase looking thing on top of her head, as water was running out. When I step closer to the big fountain, the boy was there sitting on the side.**_

 _ **He notices me walking by, looking up at me and revealing his face from the blue cap that covered it. It felt like time stop and the necklace around my neck, was glowing! When I got closer, the stone stop shining.**_

 _ **He gave me a smile and told me, "I knew we would meet again!"**_

 _ **It seemed like he already knew this was bound to happen. We played and talk together. At the end of the day, we took a picture with him by my side.**_

 _ **I will forever cherish this. And I decided that one day, I will marry him.'**_

I came to a halt in front of a shelf filled with books surrounding me. During my time reading, I already made it to the library built in my mansion.

"So that picture of the little boy is him…" I mumbled thinking of the square print. My head suddenly started to throb in pain. Dropping the diary to the floor and placing both of my hands in my head, letting out an agony of screams, "AUGHH!"

In my head I was seeing images I didn't recall of it happening, that came rushing one by one. It seemed to come to me so fast that made my heart ache in sorrow. I was swaying back and forth, hearing voices.

" _ **Lucy you will be called Luigi!"**_

" _ **What, why?!"**_

" _ **Cause you are Luigi. Luigi is Luigi."**_

" _ **Can't you give me something different instead of that?"**_

" _ **Blondie? Your hair is blonde."**_

" _ **That's insulting!"**_

" _ **Hm, what about Lu? Luuuuuuuuuuu! Mooo~"**_

" _ **I guess that's better than Luigi,"**_

" _ **Okay then Lu it is! But I still like Luigi."**_

" _ **Grrrr shut up Pinky!"**_

When the throbbing came to a stop I found myself breathing heavily. It seems like I have recovered missing parts of my memories that was long forgotten. Regaining back my balance, I picked up the diary and slowly stood up straight.

One the book shelves on my right happened to have something sticking out of it. Slipping it out from between the books, I looked at the image on it.

It was another picture.

But this time the background was filled with fireworks at the beach. I rolled my eyes back at the spot where I took out the print from, and there it was the book I was looking for, Quatoria.

Was this just a coincidence or someone is trying to tell me something? Whatever the case is, I immediately took the book out and brought it along with me.

After reaching my room, I put all my attention on the thick big book. The front cover showed an image of the stone that Loke still carries. Feeling impatient, I opened the book. There was excitement bursting inside of me, craving to read the secrets behind the legendary stone.

 _ **Quatoria is a legendary stone that exist thousands of years ago. When Dragons were still rulers of the lands they still exist back in that time, and this stones are found in the mountains of Faiboni. That was hidden deep in the dungeons of the cave.**_

 _ **During the year X234 Faiboni was lost in the depths of the sea. This stone is now considered to be rare to find. A lot of people believe that Quatoria is also buried somewhere around the other mountains that was nearby Faiboni. But no one was able to find any clues of the lost treasure. Many lives were lost in their journey to find this rare jewel.**_

 _ **According to myths this particular stone is known to held mysterious powers in it. But no one knows what you will gain once it is break into millions of pieces. There's a tale of it saying, that it'll lead you back to the original owner or other causes.**_

 _ **Even your lover or the person you are searching for will be easily found.**_

 _ **The stone will glow if the person you are seeking is close by.**_

 _ **The color of this gem is bluish-green.**_

Closing the book shut, I did not dare to read any further. I've already gathered many important facts that I found and needed that filled up my satisfaction. Standing on my two feet quickly, I raised up my fist in the air, "I need to find Leo and get that necklace back!"

* * *

 **Loki's POV**

Lately I wasn't able to focus a lot during my days at work. My mind was still glued to the situation that happened with Miss Layla.

I was still in shock to see that the stone shined so brightly like it did the first night with Lucy.

The thought of that guy showing up made it all happened. Surprisingly, I'm glad it was him and not anything that will do any harm.

But I'm still filled with questions. How exactly did Lucy and he have a connection?

Plus, Lady Layla knows quite a lot…

Under her request, I was asked to stay quiet until the time comes.

My job right now was to escort the many electors that Jude Hearfilia selected that would make a good fit to be Lucy's groom.

I was checking the list of the electors that arrived in different times.

 _ **Laxus Dreyar…**_

 _ **Sting Eucliffe**_ _and_ _**Rogue Cheney…**_

 _Last_ _**Gray Fullbuster…**_

Gray looked at me in shock, "So I guess it's true that you did propose to her!"

From the sudden out-burst, I pushed my glasses and chuckled, "Why, for a lady like Lucy, it is my pleasure. I couldn't resist asking her to marry me,"

All the boys had their eyes glaring death daggers at me and now were rotated 90 degrees when Lucy had appeared, "Geez Loki, knock it off!" She was walking down the stairs and making her way towards us.

"So you guys both live together?" Gray's eyebrows curled up as he asks.

"Jealous? Well yes, Lucy and I are living happily to—" I was interrupted when Lucy shoved me aside.

"What! No you got it all wrong! Loki is my body guard. But yes he has to live together with me!"

We all turned our heads at Lucy, watching her put her hands on her hips, "So what brings you here? And what are you guys from Sabertooth Academy doing here?" she peered her head to the side and looked at Sting and Rogue. She was also surprise to see Laxus inside of her home.

"What are you saying?" Laxus growled.

Rogue also looked annoyed and stared down at Lucy. While Sting walked up to her and wrap his arms around Lucy's shoulders, "We were invited to be selected as your groom-to-be,"

Lucy's face changed quickly.

"Don't tell me you are just hearing this now?" Gray's face was serious as he crossed his arms. His shirt happened to disappeared out of the blue.

"Hey Gray, put back your shirt you stripper! Stop showing off!" Loki shouted to him. He watched as Gray made a scene and wondered where it gone to.

"What's the meaning about this Loki?!" Lucy glanced at my direction and I could tell she was upset that I never gotten to inform her about this.

Before I could explain, Jude and Miss Layla had already shown up to make their appearance and introduce themselves.

"Perfect, everyone is here!" Jude said with glee.

Miss Layla gave off a courtesy attitude and greeted them, "Good afternoon, I am Layla Heartfilia. Jude's wife and the mother of Lucy."

The boys also returned a polite introducing to the parents who will be at their care.

"Now come, we must make haste and I shall explain the plans that I have thought of, please come to the dining room and make yourself at home," Jude guide our guests and ordered the servants to prepare meals for them.

I gazed my eyes at Lucy, she still stood beside me. I could tell she was unhappy about the sudden events she had no idea of. But for sure, I know she could tell I was informed about it a bit too late before I was able to say a word to her. I looked back at the boys that were following Jude and Lady Layla. Suddenly I realize…

"Where's Natsu?" I said.

Lucy turned her head at me with a dumb expression on her face.

"What about him?" she asks.

"Shouldn't Natsu be taking part of this to?" I wondered.

She stayed quiet for a long time and burst out laughing, "Pfffbtt, Loki, have you forgotten? My father only chooses wealthy men only. Natsu doesn't belong to a high class! Natsu even told me himself before…"

I watched Lucy walked away from me, leaving me behind speechless. "What? But Natsu does belong to a higher class…"

* * *

 **Natsu's POV**

"Hey Natsu, are you sure you are okay about this?"

I lowered my head down to look at my best friend, Happy.

"Hm?" I showed him a confuse reaction.

He stared back at me with those sad eyes and told me, "About what's been happening lately. Does it really have to turn out like this? Not doing anything about it… Don't you love her?"

We were sitting outside the porch of my small house. Looking above us, seeing stars glittering brightly. I grinned at Happy and gave him my response.

"Lisanna? Yeah."

From the frown on his face, Happy didn't seem to like the answer that I gave him. He left me all by myself after he shouted, "How long do you plan to lie?"

I lowered my head down as my hair slip in front of my face and sighed. "Is there anything I could do?"


	5. Chapter 5: Discovery and the hint

**Chapter 5:** The discovery and the hint

 **Lucy's POV**

Everything seems a bit awkward for me with the boys' living in the same mansion. Even though I am frustrated about this, all I could do is lock myself in my chamber and hopefully that'll make my father send them off, thou, I know the consequences that it'll lead to after.

Loke was with me in my room along with Virgo. I gotten the necklace back from him and inform them about the recent things that I had discovered after my trip to the library.

"As much as I am disappointed with the sudden event that's being taking place, I had found some help information about the stone..." I grabbed the book that I took from from the library of my mansion.

Loke couldn't help but blink a lot, seeing such a big book with thin pages. Virgo just stood there with a monotone expression, listening closely.

I handed Loke the book; Quatoria to him. While I explained my theory, he opened the book next to Virgo and look through the pages. "Base on what I acknowledge and gained from the book, Quatoria is a legendary stone that the majority of the population are after. This stone will bring me to the person who I am seeking for..." I paused for a minute to grab my small diary. "A long time ago I did had someone special to me, but for some reason my memories of them had disappeared at the ends of this world like it never happen. A while, I been getting weird dreams lately of someone. But I can't recall who the person is..." I looked down in disappointment as I flipped through the many pages of my diary.

Loke shown a serious expression as he still listened.

"Yesterday, in the library I found another picture that surprisingly showed up right between the book that I was looking for," I handed Loke the new picture with the same little boy and I. The fireworks were displayed in the background.

Surprisingly he didn't look quite puzzled, which I wasn't expecting from him.

"I know for sure this scenario was near my families beach house that we would visit during summer or vacation. If I'm not mistaking, my dreams that I been having are probably memories that took part in the past that came flashing back to me. That's probably how I got this golden ruby ring," I opened my jewelry box to reveal the small ring that twinkled from Loke and Virgo's sight. "On one of my pages in my diary, I was bewildered to come across an event that took place years ago, that connects all the pieces together. That talk about this ring... If you would like, you could read my journal yourself."

Loke closed the big book and placed it down on my desk. He gently grabbed the small diary from my hands and opened it.

 **"December 13th X786,**

 **Tonight I celebrate a very special occasion that is held every year. My family and I would drive down to the beach house to take part in it. I was able to see him again, it has been weeks since the last time we both played together. He wears the same cap again. I was able to wear my new summer dress colored in a light yellow since the cold weather has not yet arrived. I was waiting outside next to my father's car since I heard he'll be coming to attend. Thankfully he showed up, so the wait was worth it! He handed me a really pretty ring which was sealed as a promise for our future. I hope that things wouldn't change for both of us."**

Loke filipped to the next page,

 **"December 23rd X786,**

 **It's almost Christmas time and I wasn't able to see him again. I already have a giftt prepared to hand it over to him. But daddy says that their family went out of town for vacation and he wasn't sure when they'll come back. I been working really hard to make a knitted hat. Thanks to mommy's help! What's left to do is attach the furry ball on top. I hope he likes it!"**

 _..._

 **"December 25th X786,**

 **It's snowing really hard outside. I been sitting next to the window seat of my mansion hoping to see him. I wondered where he was and when will I have a chance to give him his present. After my meals, I would go back back to the stare out the window once more. The snow prevemt me from seeing anything, now it was slowly getting dark outside. Mommy always campe to check up on me but all I ever did was still wait. Once it strike midnight, I was woken up by a familiar voice and the loud rustling sounds of wrappers being torn apart. When I opened my eyes, it was no one other than him. He was very pleased with his present thought it was kind of too big for him."**

 _..._

 **"June 14th, X787**

 **The other day I acidentally run up to someone who had a similiar cap that he once wore. I haven't seen him ever since Christmas. I caught the boy in surprise when I hug him from behind. When he turned around, I was sorta disappointed to see that it wasn't him at all. I wonder when I'll see him again?"**

 _..._

 **"July 1st X787,**

 **Today is my tenth birthday. Everyone went out of their way to decorate the place for me. There was a lot of people who I wasn't familiar with. Such as the blonde boy and the black haired one that would stick together like glue. I couldn't help but look for that one person in my party. But I never gotten to see him. Maybe next time I'll get to spend time with him, hopefully?"**

Loke turned to the next page expecting another diary entry. But all he saw was a blank page, he flipped to the next one after the next, hoping to see a hidden writing somewhere between the empty pages. But there was none. "That's all?" he questioned.

Lucy let out a deep sigh, "Unfortunately yes, I also said the same thing, my love for writing doesn't stop like that. But somehow it did. I'm sure that I would always continue even if I don't have the time to do so."

* * *

 **Loki's POV**

I closed the small book with only one hand as I let out a deep sigh. "Now that you have the necklace, I am guessing you'll also do more research with it, am I right?"

Lucy blinked at me twice and gave me a big grin, "Precisely, you know me so well! she chuckled.

I smirked and placed her little pretty diary on her working desk. Shoving both of my hands into my pocket, I looked down at the floor while Lucy was having a conversation with Virgo about Quatoria. As much as I wanted to spill the beans to Lucy of what happened the other day with her mother, I had sealed a promise to Miss Layla about what I had found out. But it was sorta odd for me how Lucy mention that Natsu wasn't part of a wealthy family. I couldn't help but ponder about this complex situation. I am sure Lucy developed feelings for Natsu ever since he transferred to the same school. I'm also guessing that since she's the new holder of the stone, it probably reacts to the person she has feelings for? That might be her connection with Natsu probably...

Maybe I am thinking too much, what the case may be, this is getting sorta confusing. But Lucy seems to be filling out all the small details that connects with her dreams and these items.

I galnced over at her cherry blossom diary, with a serious look. As I was reading along the lines in each sentence, it was always referring to 'him' so it wasn't very accurate at all. It could be anyone so I can't just accuse that this person is Natsu. However, my curosity is that, why the heck was he here the other time and why was I told to stay quiet by Mrs. Heartfilia? For sure, I really need to talk things out with her.

I was so deep in thought that I did not realize Lucy calling to me for my attention. "Loki!" she shouted out. I snap out of my train of thought and rotated my head into her direction. She pointed at her transparent sliding door that leads out of the balcony. I saw one of the guests standing outside knocking on the glass. Sliding the glass, I questioned him, "How did you get up here Gray?!"

* * *

 **Gray's POV**

"By climbing down from the window upstairs, I used the roof to slide down." I said in a straightforward manner. I was wondering around the mansion looking and exploring, since my curiosity has been bothering me for quite some time that I couldnt just sit down in the guest room and stay put.

"So this is your balcony huh," I told Lucy. She didn't seem to be pleased with my presences with that look on her face. But surprisingly she didn't tell me to get out. But I got the idea loud and clear, "Sorry for barging in, I'll leave now." I told them.

While I was making my way to the door, Lucy notice something fall out of my back pocket, "You drop something Gray!" she said. She picked up the foldable blue cap on the floor and became awfully quiet all of the sudden.

I turned around and extended my hand out waiting for her to drop the rounded cap onto my hands. I waited which felt like ten minutes had already past, until Lucy asked, "Where did you get this hat?" she looked at me, immediately having eye contact. Her eyes seemed to tremble, waiting for my response.

"I had this since I was little, why?"

She took another good look at the blue cp and flicked her eyes back to me. I was thinking 'anytime now please. I don't know what's going on here but this is sorta getting a little bit awkward for me.' The room is quiet, Loke and Lucy's maid seems to be staring at us. Apparently, I'm the one who seems a bit confuse here the most.

Lucy happened to mumbled something under her breath that I couldn't make out. I ask her to repeat herself, until she caused me to jump back a little when she shouted, "Is it you?!" her eyes were watery. For some reason I made her cry, but for goodnesss sake what in the world did I do?

I apologize to Lucy and told her, "I'm sorry Lucy, but I am a bit lost here."

Her face seemed to be disappointed, as I remembered the flashback of her when she was younger. "Aw come on. Not this again..." I groaned. "You gave me that same face years ago."

Everyone looked at me a bit concerned and put all their attention to the words that was coming out from my mouth, "This isn't the first time you gave me that same expression, Lucy."

"When you say first time, when was that?" Loke asked.

"It was a long time ago, when we were in middle school. I don't remember much, but Lucy happened to hug me from behind one day. Which took me by surprise. But as soon as I turned around, she was startled and gave me the same reaction as she is doing now." I sighed.

Lucy frowned, "I'm sorry," she told me. "My memories are a bit blur about that. So I don't recall anything."

"No worries. I'm just a bit confuse to what's going on actually." I looked at everyone in the room, and saw Loke grabbing something from the desk beside him. He tossed the little journal as I successfully grabbed it in mid air. I recogized this book that Lucy took out of her bag at school.

"Flip through the pages of her entry, I am sure you'll get the clue of what's going on here. Certainly you were mentioned somewhere there but not specifically," Loke pushed in his tinted glasses with his eyes close. "So I'm highly sure that you are one of our connections to Lucy's situation."

As I read through the pages, I was still a bit confused but Loke gave me a slight idea to everything. "Since you aren't aware what was going on from the start, it's a confirmation that you aren't the one that Lucy is seeking for. But as much as we forgotten, the stone did not glow."

Lucy held up Quatoria for me to see. Even though I am not interested in the legendary stone, I admired the beauty of it. After Loke finished talking, Lucy showed me a picture of the little boy in two pictures with the similiar hat.

"That's...!"

* * *

 **Layla's POV**

Once again my husband had request for my appearance in his office. I gently knocked on the door, awaiting for my love's voice to respond, "Come in."

I entered his work space and found him gazing out of the window like always. Closing the door behind me, all I could hear was the sound of my footsteps echoing which came to a stop as I made my last step. "What is it you would like to discuss with me, Jude?"

It is now sunset, and I could see the orange colors reflecting in the room, as the shadows grew larger. "I am sure you remember the changes that happened to our daughter; Lucy, long ago." He suddenly brought up. Not showing any astonish reaction, I held on to my strong composure and just nodded, "Yes I do."

Jude cleared his throat and closed his eyes. I am sure every time he does so, he is holding back from choking up or shedding out tears. "Even though I may be forcing out on our daughter, but I am just doing what's best for her as a parent, and a guardian. I don't want to lose our daughter, but what happened in the past stays there. I don't want her to see that boy, even if it means I'll have full control over her."

Keeping calm, I know talking this over with him will do no good on convincing him. There's a story that he doesn't know of that holds the truth to everything. He din't say anything else, though, I chose not say anything. Jude gave the privilege to leave.

When I head back to my private study room, there he was, waiting for me. He stood next to the big window that viewed my favorite gardens that I loved so much. The sun's orange color shaded him. Even though something horrifying happened back then, I know for sure that this boy is no liar. Through his actions and painful expression, I could tell he speaks nothing but the truth.

"It's nice to see you again, Natsu." I smiled. He slowly turned his head and gave me a small smile.

* * *

[ **Author's note** : **_Wow. Yay, even though I don't have much followers or reviews, I would like to thank the readers who continued on. My apologies for the slow entry since I been working on my education stuff. But please let me know if I need to approve anything, such as my grammar, etc._**

 ** _I hope the story line is making sense and making you want more! Thou I seem to do a lot of cliffhangers which I love... sorry._**

 ** _Since I sometimes forgotten how the story line goes I had to look back at my little notes to keep myself organize._**

 ** _Hopefully during the chapters some of you were able to figure out who the person is, though the cover to this story gave it away(?)_**

 ** _Anyways thank you!_** ]


	6. Chapter 6: Different POVs

[ **Author's Note:** Hey readers! I apologize for the long wait for the next chapter! The last chapter I post was _Lucy Goddess of The Stars_ _(I wonder if you guys check that out)._ When I was creating that one-shot story; I was sick during that time and I was running a fever. I had a lot of errors that I notice on that short story (since I couldn't think straight from being sick). So I had to delay for a while. It wasn't a fast recovery since I had some academic stuff to catch up on. I made the chapters that I was planning to publish next, but in my opinion it seems sort of too fast to get to the point of the story. So I had to do a lot of thinking and re-editing the plot a bit. I also have been catching up with Fairy Tail, I am glad Lucy got stronger. And I realize due to my absences, I gained a few more followers and a review. I am actually happy about that. Thanks for reading!]

* * *

 **Chapter 6** : The different POVs

Miss Layla, the lady of the Heartfilia's household was peacefully sitting down on a modern chair, sipping on a cup of her favorite tea. Right next to her, stood a tall figure. Actually, a young man; **Natsu Dragoneel**.

The pink haired boy was gazing out the window of Lady Layla's private study room. What he wore was Fairy Tail's school uniform and the scarf around his neck. His best friend; Happy, have tag along with him. The blue cat was happily munching on his fish that was served to him by the servants.

It did not take long until the silence broke out. Miss Layla placed her cup of tea down on the small plate and then folded her hands together next to her stomach with a sad expression shown upon her face.

" _You were forced into this arranged marriage weren't you?" Layla quietly said. The sudden topic startled the young man as he rotated his head in a ninety degree angle to look at the elegant woman. He did not spoke a word, but his eyes were trembling with such sorrow._

 _The blue exceed refrained from eating his fish, since he lost his appetite due to the reaction he witness on Natsu's face._

" _You love her don't you?" Layla smiled. She glanced over at him and said, "You cannot deny it. If you didn't, you would've just ignored my request and not continued on with this plan."_

* * *

 **Lucy's POV**

It has been a month ever since the selected bachelors' lived under the same roof with the Heartfilia family. How much I detest the idea of going to school every day with them under my father's control I had no choice but to go along with it. It was our daily routine.

But, the only ones who went to the same academy as me was only Gray and Loke.

Laxus was already a high school graduated. Such as Sting and Rogue, they took another path that leads them directly to Sabertooth Academy. Which is the neighboring school next to Fairy Tail.

We only rode together in my limousine (with Capricorn as our destination driver) for the sake of my father's satisfaction. Laxus had other business to attend, so he would usually be taken back to the mansion so he could sort his personal problems out.

"Hey, does anyone know where Lucy gone off too?" ask Levy. She spun her head around to look for the golden hair best friend of hers. But wasn't anywhere in sight. It was now lunch time for the high schoolers.

Gray was blowing on a pink piece of gum that suddenly pop in front of his face, "No.'' He responded.

For Gajeel, he was munching down on his food sitting beside Gray, too busy to even give Levy a reply.

I was sitting alone in solitude during lunch. A place where I could be by myself and get some peaceful moment. Not much of the students come to the garden, so this was the perfect place for me to ponder about and wonder. My head was distracted of that moment with Gray that occurred last time.

To even think I thought he was the boy in the picture and the person that was never mentioned on my diary… It wasn't him.

But to my surprise, he had the same blue cap that the young boy wore. I let out a deep sigh. I brought the book Quatoria with me to do further research. But my mind would not concentrate and pick up the words that I was reading. So it was complicated for me to even comprehend.

"Ugh. If it's not Gray then how exactly did the boy get that hat? Who exactly is it…? Why can't my mind remember anything?!" I said out-loud in frustration.

It has been a month since I discovered about Quatoria, but there was nothing else that I found useful that will help me out. And nothing had happened so far…

* * *

 **Gray's POV**

During the car ride earlier, Lucy was really quiet. Though we all were, except for Sting since he tried to break the silence, making it more awkward for all of us.

Due to my own understanding, Loke said I have a connection with Lucy's situation. But, I am entirely confuse. Just thinking about this is giving me a headache. I put my hand on my forehead and groaned.

However, that picture that she shown me with that little boy wearing my hat caught me by surprise.

 _ **(**_ _ **Referring back to Chapter 5:**_

 _Lucy held up Quatoria for me to see. Even though I am not interested in the legendary stone, I admired the beauty of it. After Loke finished talking, Lucy showed me a picture of the little boy in two pictures with the similar hat._

 _"That's...!"_

 _ **END)**_

Even though I do know who that boy was on that picture, I did not say anything. I kept quiet and refrain from spilling it out to Lucy. For some reason, I don't know why but I did. The image of Leo questioning me,

"What? Do you know something?" suddenly shown up in my head.

But I just stood there and didn't say anything. I am positively sure that Lucy was hoping for me to say something. I was wondering what would have happened if I just blurt it out? Who knows... I just didn't do it. And that was that.

I remember clearly of Lucy hugging me from behind and giving me that disappointment look years ago. In one of Lucy's diary she did mention it.

 **"June 14th, X787**

 **The other day I accidentally run up to someone who had a similar cap that he once wore. I haven't seen him ever since Christmas. I caught the boy in surprise when I hug him from behind. When he turned around, I was sort of disappointed to see that it wasn't him at all. I wonder when I'll see him again."**

What I don't get is this; if Lucy was seeking for him, why is she asking for his identity. Did she lost her memory or something or is she just being dumb? My curiosity is getting into me again. What is that guy's connections with her?

Without realizing it, my face was making an intimating expression. Levy noticed and interrupted me from my thoughts.

"What's with you Gray?" She asked.

"Huh?"

Gajeel also saw the look I made, "What'ya scowling about?" He sneered.

I frowned giving off a normal face, "What're you boasting off about?"

Gajeel and Levy both exchanged looks and eyed back at me, "Never mind that, I heard that you were one of the candidates chosen by Lucy's father," Levy said, "Is the rumors true?"

"Huh? I thought Loki was engaged to her?" Gajeel raised his eyebrows.

I let out a sigh, "You weren't the only one who thought that. But yeah. It's true."

"Wow. Poor Luce, I know she did not want to get involved in this kind of situation." Levy sweated.

Even if what Levy said was true. I had a load of questions to ask Lucy. I laid back on my seat and gazed out the window.

* * *

 **Lucy's POV**

After a while, I was finally able to have my mind focus on the book. I lifted up the necklace in front of face to analyze it. The book was sitting on my lap, wide open to one of the pages.

"Such an ancient stone, so hard to grasp but a particular stone with so much legends to grab…" I whispered under my breath.

"This stone should glow if the person I am seeking for is nearby… But it leads too many different causes…"

"Hmm…"

"So what happens if I break this thing into tiny pieces? This book doesn't give that kind of information at all. It does bugs me…. But I wonder if it'll still work if it got shattered…" I thought of a moment as I glared at the stone.

"I can't risk anything! I need this in one piece!" I sighed.

"But I really don't know what makes this stone glow… The book says it leads to different causes…"

Before I could let out a sigh once again, someone from above called out to me, "Hey Lucy!"

I looked up, shoving the necklace inside of my bag not realizing the glow it was giving off. Leaning on the balcony was a boy with pink hair. "Natsu!" I shouted out.

"Yo!" He grinned. Natsu leaped down from the second floor balcony and made his way towards me. It's been a while since I last saw him.

"What're you reading? Wow, that's a big book you got there!" He exclaimed.

I chuckled as he sat right next to me on the grass. "It's just something I am researching about. Quatoria. Have you heard about it before? It's a legendary stone."

He gave me one of his usual dumbfounded expressions. I already assumed that he had no knowledge about it at all. So I gave him all the information that I knew about the stone according to what I have read.

"Wow, really?! So what happens if it breaks!?" He said excitedly.

"There was no explanation of it on the book." I told him.

"Aw, well that's too bad. It must be a pretty rare gem, huh!" He grinned.

I nodded my head and grinned back at him. It has been a while since we had a conversation like this that was so enjoyable. The last time we had something like this was back when I met him during my freshman year of high school. That was a long time ago…

Talking to him felt really nostalgic. I couldn't help but laugh about his stupidity and his idiotic moments sometimes, but that's what makes him so fun to hang out with. He could always crack a smile on my face even if I was sad. My worries would also disappear.

I am surprise, someone like Natsu could do this to me. My heart would feel warm…

We were talking nonstop until the bell rang for class.

"Aw man, looks like lunch is over." Natsu groaned.

"Already?!" I shouted in surprise. I was gathering up all my stuff together and putting them inside of my bag. Natsu insist to lend me a hand, "Let me carry that book for you Luce." He placed his palms on top of mine until a shock came running over my body.

I dropped all my belongings to the floor as I quickly kneeled down to the ground, putting both of my hands on the side of my temple. Natsu quickly reacted when I was screaming in pain, "AUUUAAH!"

I was squeezing my eyes shut and trembling, seeing images of the young boy running through my head.

 _(_ _ **Voices in Lucy's head:**_

 _"We meet again!"_

 _"I knew it was you."_

 _"A ring...?"_

 _"And this, it's a promise.")_

I was breathing heavily as I slowly opened my eyes to look at the person who was calling out to me.

 **"LUCY!"**

 **"LUCY!?"**

 **"LUCY ARE YOU ALRIGHT?!"**

Natsu was panicking like crazy and asking me questions. My head was throbbing and I couldn't quite understand the painful feeling on my heart. Like I was stab to death. I was eyeing Natsu in a daze. My visions of him was blurry, I was seeing doubles of him circling around in front of me.

 **"LUCY ARE YOU OKAY?!"** He asked me again.

It took me a while to come back to my senses and responded to him, "Y-yes. I am…"

Natsu sighed in relief, "Good. You have me worried there." He helped me up as he picked up my belongings from the ground.

"Let's head to class now Lucy, or we will be late. Unless you want to check up with the nurse?"

I shook my head and object to that. "No, I am fine. Let's go to class." I told him with one of my carefree smiles. He just stared at me with a worrisome look but nodded his head. I followed him from behind as he led the way to our classroom.

"Again… But what the heck was that?" I thought.

I couldn't help but think of what just happened back there. Randomly getting a flashback of the past again, like during the time I was looking for Quatoria in the library of my mansion…

Why am I suddenly getting images of the past out of nowhere? Where did my memories vanish into? When did it disappear? What cause to this…?

I wonder if I'll ever figure all these out.

* * *

 **Jude's POV**

Jude was sitting in his office searching for a file in one of his documents that he placed on his desk.

He was in deep thought, thinking about a tragic accident that was replaying repeatedly inside his head about his daughter. Something that he wished that would have never happened, blaming all the carelessness on himself.

Despite the fact that he was a business man that would be put under pressure, stress, and the overwhelming feeling from his work. He was more effected from the horrifying images that was automatically saved in his memory. Thou, no matter how hard he tried to forget, that picture of what happened to Lucy will forever remain inside of his head…

How long ago was it since that accident happened? I am thankful that the memories of that kid is no longer lingering inside the mind of my precious daughter. There's no way, I would want that boy to even come near her again. I do hope, that she'll fall in love with one of the bachelor's that I have selected on my own.

Just thinking of him, I find him revolting. I want that kid, five thousand feet away from Lucy. Whatever it takes, I'll make sure to protect her from that man.

"Ah, here it is…" Jude said to himself. He was looking at a paper with a hospital report with Lucy's name on it.

"Just seeing this, brings me back to that awful moment that I thought time had stop." He whispered.

Laxus was leaning back on the wall with his arms cross. His eyes were shut close not caring about what Mr. Heartfilia was mumbling about.

"Laxus." Jude said.

Laxus opened one of his eyes to look at him. "What is it old man."

"I am quite sure you only accept this offer just to gain all the power and wealth from me, right?" Jude glared at him. "For sure, you will not gain all that if you don't take good care of my daughter," he paused. "So, I want to inform you every little detail about my daughter's past… with a certain someone… I am sure, that you are familiar with who he was…" Jude extended his arms out to give the document of Lucy's record to him.

The blonde muscular man took the paper and scan through it.

"Hm. So your daughter..." he paused for a moment, "Had a tragic accident when she was young..." Laxus continued to read the information written on the document.

"Lucy Heartfilia was in a coma for three weeks, she went to a depression for quite a while…" Laxus paused and flicked his eyes at me. "I am not understanding why this is important for me to know old man."

I cleared my throat and told Laxus, "You will soon enough. Do you know about Mr. Dragoneel?"

"Natsu?" Laxus replied.

"Yes. Natsu Dragoneel."

"What about him." Laxus narrowed his brows at me.

I did not say something in return quickly. I could tell Laxus was waiting for me to say something as I took my time to find the right words to say, "He is bad news."


	7. Chapter 7: Unexpected situation

**Chapter 7:** _The unexpected situation_

Today was finally the event that was held for Miss Lucy, another idea that Mr. Heartfilia had brought up for himself without having a private conversation with Lady Layla or giving her any knowledge of it. However, even if Mrs. Heartfilia were to refuse about the sudden occasion, there was a majority of her arguments going to a waste. It was like her words was going through her husband's ears, one to the other. In other words, _Jude was in control of what was now being taken place_.

* * *

 **Lucy's POV**

It was now the afternoon and the young mistress was laying down on her bed all dressed up. Her long golden hair was put into a single side braid that reached up to her stomach. She wore a light pink silky dress and as her accessory was a pink flower hairclip that puts her side bangs in place.

The young girl was staring at her ceiling, dozing off. She wondered about the mysterious boy and a random situation if she were finally able to meet him in person, "What would have happened by now?" she thought.

Everyone in the house such as the servants, and the boys knew that Lucy was trying to escape from all of her father's plans. But it was surprising to see that she was not complaining about her father's schedule planned for her today.

She was more into her own little world.

"The **_little boy_** that I saw in my flashback ** _made a promise to me_** when he gave me that ring… also in my **_dreams_**?" She mumbled. "So… does that mean… it was all **_real_** …?" she raised up her arm in front of her and looked at the ruby ring she was wearing on her ring finger. "I was engaged?"

Out of nowhere, Leo and Virgo came barging into the room. Lucy quickly sat up. "You look dazzling." Loki compliment.

"Expected for our princess of course." said Virgo.

"Anyways, your father wants you to come now and meet up with the boys, Lucy," Leo told her. "Man, why is he randomly throwing things out of nowhere all of a sudden, how annoying."

Leo made a grimace look as we all exit out of my bedroom. Along the way to the gardens, they escorted me where all the bachelors were waiting. The set up was all arranged due to my father's planning and demanding to put everything all in order. A theme for a 'Relaxing Paradise Garden.'

"Finally you came!" Sting grinned.

"Took you long enough." Rogue simply said.

"I hope you could move on a lot more faster next time," growled Laxus.

They were all sitting down on a comfortable chair made specifically for outdoors. Sitting in the middle of the table was a bowl of fruits as their nutritious snack. This event was for Lucy to get to know the boys more and have a friendlier term with them. To raise the bonds between each other.

"Wow, to think we are all competing with each other just to be Lucy's groom!" Sting laughed.

"Put a sock in it Sting." Rogue grumbled.

Sting and Rogue were exchanging words to each other. For Laxus he was quietly sitting there, not only him but Gray and Lucy too.

* * *

 **Loki's POV**

Leo was walking in the hallway all by himself. He left as soon as he ushered Lucy to the gardens along with Virgo. He had both of his hands inside his pocket with a frustrated expression. Loke was heading towards Lady Layla's study room. Hoping that she'll be in there sipping on her tea like always.

By the time he reached the room he did not bother knocking, not minding about his rude interruptions. When he twisted the door knob and entered, he was surprise to see Natsu again speaking to Layla. This time he was wearing one of his casual clothes.

Natsu and Loke were both locking their eyes at each other. "You are here again." Leo said.

"Loki, I wasn't expecting you to come here," Layla frowned. She heaved a deep sigh and looked at me. "I hope you stay quiet about this for me Leo."

"Don't worry, I haven't even spoke a word about this to anyone from the start." I told her. Natsu and Layla didn't take their eyes off at me. Nor did they even say anything. It seems like I have interrupted their private conversation that was only between them. So I decided to say something while I still have the chance to do so.

"I been wanting to ask this for quite a while now, Natsu," I watched as he turned his whole body towards me. "What position do you hold as your class?"

* * *

 **Gray's POV**

The same boys were still conversing with each other, as the others just listen to them talk. Sometimes Lucy will talk from time to time. But you could actually tell that she had something else in her mind. As for Laxus, it was hard to tell if he was slightly annoyed being part of this or he was patiently waiting for everything to end. Whichever it is, he never did open his eyes this whole entire time.

I was just glaring at Lucy wondering if it was the right time to ask her one of my curious questions. Or it would be better off to have the subject of her past brought into a later time that was more private to discuss about. I was debating with myself for a while.

Until suddenly, Sting had brought up something that caught my full attention. Not only me, but Laxus too.

"I am surprise that Natsu isn't taking part of this." Sting said with a carefree face.

"Yea. That actually surprise me too, he is well-known. He is single too." Said Rogue.

"How come he isn't taking part in this anyways?" questioned Sting.

Lucy looked at them with a face full of curiosity. Her expression was furious as she listened to the words that Rogue and Sting were saying.

"Beats me. Probably he didn't like stuff like this either. I mean we are all in the same boat here, right?" Rogue ask.

Before I could say anything to change the topic, Lucy quickly said, "What're you guys talking about? Natsu said that his status wasn't from a higher class."

* * *

 **Natsu's POV**

Layla's head was looking down in disappointment. She knew that Leo had caught up to things that shouldn't be known or be the main talk. But Layla knew very well that there was no purpose to hide it from Leo now. The topic was already brought up and there was no way it could be ignored by ones curiosity.

I smiled at Leo; who was still waiting for my response, "What made you ask that question?"

"Easy. Lucy mentioned that you told her yourself that you did not belong to a higher class. So it was strange for me to see that you weren't selected as one of the bachelor's to be Lucy's groom. So I couldn't help myself but ask." He told me.

Knowing very well, that he was Lucy's bodyguard, I know for sure that he was the one to figure things out quicker. But it cannot be help. I guess there's no other options for me other than revealing the truth to him.

"I no longer hold the status of belonging to a higher class," I told him. I haven't even finish explaining myself but he already had such a bewildered reaction. I could already tell he wanted to shoot a massive load of questions at me before I could end my sentence.

"I left the household on my own will. Nothing more."

Leo's eyes spread wide open, "But why….?" He asked.

* * *

 **Laxus's POV**

Everyone notice the awful aura that this bimbo over here next to me, Miss Lucy, was giving off. But they didn't pay it no mind, and chose not to let it bother them. She was giving her full attention to Sting and Rogue's conversation about Natsu.

Laxus was giving the men death glares, I could tell that they pretend not to notice it but only Lucy's intense atmosphere.

I was told to never mention a particular someone by Jude Heartfilia. But what a coincidence that the guy was brought up by somebody else. How annoying that I got involved into this dirty work. Anyways, I really don't care if he was brought up to this situation, but to gain the wealth and fortune by this girl's father. I have no other choice but to do something about it.

"Yeah. We were close friends with Natsu when we were little. We always hang out with him. And made our own clubhouse." Sting grinned. "Don'tcha remember Gray?!" He turned his head towards him and pat his back repeatedly.

"Yeah… I do…" He groaned.

I was thinking of a way to distract Lucy out of this, until I saw something twinkling on her hands.

"Wow, Lucy." I said out-loud interrupting the conversation. Everyone looked at me as I extended my arms out to reach for the girls palms. "I am surprise to see that you still have that ruby ring I gave to you. I wasn't expecting this. I thought that you no longer remembered about it," I paused.

I looked up to look at Lucy's chocolate eyes, and hopefully that I was able to seduce her from one of my pick-up lines. "I am actually glad, that you are finally wearing it once again." I said to her in a way that sounded so sentimental.

To my surprise her eyes was growing wider, seeing that her cheeks was slowly becoming pinkish-red. "Do you remember our promise that we made together? I never did forgotten it." I told her.

A small gasp came out of her lips, as Lucy suddenly told me, "Are you…?"

I chuckled, "The little boy? Yes. It's been a long time, Lucy…"

"Is it really you..?"

* * *

 **Layla's POV**

The secret is out now. Loki was still in this room questioning Natsu. It didn't really matter anymore to me that Leo knew half of the things that was supposed to be hidden. However, I knew how loyal and committed he was so there was nothing for us to worry about. We trust him to be part of this. Even doing this all by myself is a lot of work and an overwhelming job for me to handle. Now that I have someone else to team up with, I don't have to worry about most parts.

"Now that everything has been found out. There is one person that must not know about this. My husband."

Leo glanced over at me, it was easy to tell that he was wondering why. It isn't complicated to read that face of his.

"Jude cannot know about Natsu's presences in this mansion. He holds a big hatred against him."

I didn't give any further details about it. But Leo seem to understand perfectly well somehow. We gave him our thanks for cooperating with us, thou, I had him know, that whatever happens to him I will be the one who will solve the problem and get him out of any complication in the near future. It'll be my job to keep Leo's protection safe as well with Natsu.

The room got quiet for a moment as soon as we heard a familiar footstep echoing outside of the hallway. We all quickly reacted and I demanded Leo to take Natsu and escort him out. The both of them hurried out of the window and jumped down from the balcony. I immediately closed the window after them and maintain myself in a proper order and kept my calm composure. I sat down on my favorite modern chair and pretend to read one of my academic books as I was sipping on my cup of tea like I originally do. Waiting for his unexpected arrival.

Once the door slowly opened, he called out to me, "Layla."

"Speaking of the devil…" I thought to myself.

I looked up to see my husband closing the door behind him. "What is it?"

"I wanted to tell you something," he took a seat on one of the chairs in the room.

"I just want you to know about the plans I intended to hold in the near future," Jude rested his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward, folding his hands and placing his chin on top of it.

"I am already fully aware that I have not gotten your permission to tell you anything of my own doings and no self-explanatory." He paused and lifted his head up to make eye contact with me.

"This year, I plan to hold a winter ball the day of New Years, and at that time…" He paused again, "I will be waiting for Lucy's decision to be made up on which man she wants to get married to."

I dropped my book on the floor as soon as he finish announcing his future plans to me. I watched Jude walked out from the room. I felt angry that he was deciding everything all for himself without letting me approve any of his ideas. But like I am one to talk, I am also doing something without any agreement or knowledge from him. Honestly, this time I don't care if he doesn't know. Because, he already had too many things that he planned all by himself. And I wouldn't let his plans interfere with mines. I just hope that, there's still enough time before the winter ball, which is only thirty-five days away.

Sadly, I cannot boost up the pace by myself. It all depends on him. He is the one who has to do something about it sooner or later. **There wouldn't be much more time. And who knows what obstacle might get in the way later on. It'll be too much to handle if they were all to combine together…**

"Please. Give us some more time…"


	8. Chapter 8: Table turns

**Chapter 8:** _The table turns_

 **NARRATOR**

At last, the time has finally come. The climax to this story is now rising up. How unexpected to find out that the mysterious man that Lucy has been trying to find for so long has shown up in front of her! **(?)** And there are conflicts happening that is only a secret between Natsu, Layla, and Loke. But what is actually happening?! Strange enough it already is, Jude Heartfilia holds a grudge against Natsu Dragoneel for some odd reason. Apparently we just recently found out that something happened in Lucy's past. Not only that, but Gray has some sort of connection to Lucy's diary entry. And how come Natsu left his household by his own freewill? Let's start on with the story!

* * *

 **Lucy's POV**

Ever since I recently found out that Laxus was the mysterious boy that I have long for, Gray and the other boys were given the privilege to leave under my father's authorities. It wasn't a surprise to me to find out they were happy to finally be set free from this hell hole. Just because they never wanted to be part in this arranged marriage. So we were all pretty much in the same boat after all. It was pretty funny how Rogue simply confronted me of how he felt, I don't really blame him.

"I was never interested in marrying you, you know," Rogue said in a straightforward manner. "You never did caught my attention at all, but," he paused, "I wouldn't deny that you are actually good-looking."

And just like that he happily left, saying his last few words of farewell to me. It was such a surprise with Sting though, I never knew that guy already had someone that he was interested on. "You know, it saddens me that I wouldn't be able to see you every day anymore. It was fun until it last." He winked at me. "But, on the other note, I get to see Yukino again!"

As for Gray, I am not sure if he did had anyone in mind. But I know for sure, he always rejected proposals like this. It was quite shocking to figure out that he broke a ton of girls' heart because he never wanted to settle down just yet. He only wanted to take part of this just to see how things goes. Sometimes I wonder what would have happen if I selected him. At the end, he was honest with me.

"I am glad that I am finally able to go back home. But this was sort of fun. It was like a game. But honestly, if you did picked me, I would've just disappear the next day and never return." Gray smirked.

"Gee Gray. You make me sound like the most hideous woman you ever met in this planet."

"Oh I do? Sorry, I didn't mean it like that." He scratched his head.

"Anyways, now that I decided on Laxus, you are good to go now." I waited for him to say his goodbyes but he stood there glaring at me. I wasn't sure what was going on. "Um, what is it?" I asked him.

"I know this might be none of my business to ask, but are you sure you know it is him?"

I raised up my eyebrows and felt entirely confuse.

"I mean, like, are you positively sure that Laxus is your mysterious man that you been looking for? I thought you didn't even remember how this person looks like." He told me. "Just awhile back you were asking me if I was the person because of my cap. But at the end you were really disappointed that it wasn't me. So I'm just wondering if this is the right confirmation that you are making here."

I clenched my hands in front of my chest and I couldn't quite find the right words to tell him.

"Lucy. Let me ask you this question," Gray said in a serious tone. I locked my eyes with his and listened carefully to what he wanted to say.

"Why can't you remember anything about this guy? Have you lost your memories or something? Because if you did, you wouldn't be asking or having any troubles finding out who he is. Just letting you know, open your eyes."

My eyes were trembling as I was stunned to hear such a hostile tone from him.

"You can't just believe people that easily. And what I mean, is what happened the other day with you and Laxus."

"What do you know?" I told him. "You don't know nothing! So stop talking so big!" I shouted.

I covered my mouth and gazed up at him. I didn't mean to scream like that, it just automatically came out. Gray just glared at me angrily. I could tell he was upset for some reason.

"I may not know the whole entire thing of what is going on. But I surely do know, that you are about to make the biggest mistake of your life. Just do me a favor will yah, give it some time before you actually think of living your life with him!"

That was the last thing that Gray had told me. To my own understanding, it seems like he was fully aware of my own ignorance on thinking that Laxus might be the young boy that I been looking for my entire life. But, Laxus seems to know about that promise that was made years ago. That only the boy and I know about. So how is it possible that Laxus could not be the one that I been searching for?

After all that, I forgotten all about Quatoria and shoved that aside. Putting all my attention to Laxus.

* * *

 **Natsu's POV**

It has been a while since I made my own appearance in school. I been absent for a while ever since I visit Mrs. Heartfilia. There was things that I have to sort out so I wasn't able to attend school much lately, it has been a week since I came.

I was heading to my homeroom class along with Gray and Gajeel, before I could even turn to the corner I accidentally had bump into someone rushing my way. The person let out a small scream as I caused her to crash land on her bottom, "Eek!" I looked down to see who it was as I gently rub the bump on my chin. "Hey, watch where you are go—"

Blonde long hair was fluttering around and glitters were appearing in my visions. She quickly looked up at me. It was the one and only, Lucy. I smiled and extended my arms to help her up, "Hey Luce, what's the rush?" I asked her. "Are you late for something, you got diarrhea and heading to the bathroom?"

"Block head, I don't think you should announce such a personal thing out of the blue." Gray scowled.

"You are an idiot Salamander." Gajeel rolled his eyes and cross his arms.

As I helped Lucy up she patted the dirt off her skirt, "No, that's not the reason why. That's really embarrassing if that was true, geez Natsu," She exhaled then looked at me with a smile, "I am actually meeting up with someone."

"Oh really, one of your girl friends?" I questioned.

"No. It's Laxus," she quickly answered. "Anyways, I'll see you guys in class!" I couldn't speak a word of goodbye to her as she rushed past me.

"I guess the rumors are true," Gajeel brought up, "That she found the mysterious man that she was searching for," he turned his head towards Gray and asked him, "So what exactly is going on?"

"Beats me," Gray shrugged. "Sting, Rogue and I were finally released. Ever since Lucy told her father that she was interested on getting to know Laxus."

We all started to continue on walking to class together. Erza and Levy happened to be sharing a conversation together. "Is that so?" Erza said in a surprise.

"Yeah. Lucy was saying that Laxus might be the mysterious boy that she has been searching for!" Levy smiled with glee, "I am really happy for her. I am glad that she was able to find her true love."

"I am happy for her too. It must be nice to be able to reunite with someone you always had feelings for." said Erza.

* * *

 **Gray's POV**

The conversation between Erza and Levy went on and on. They couldn't help but talk about how they admire Lucy's lost love. It sort of irritated me a bit on how I found Lucy's situation to be a load of bullshit.

Even thou, I know a little bit of what is going on. I couldn't stop glaring at Natsu out of anger. When I looked out of the window, I spotted someone at the front gate of Fairy Tail academy. A long blonde hair girl and a big muscular man with the same hair color. Lucy and Laxus. They were both talking to each other, and smiling. All over my body I could felt the heat of anger boiling in my blood. My eyes couldn't help but twitch with the scene I witness for myself. I didn't only notice it, but Levy just now spotted the two of them from afar.

"Why don't you look at that, speaking of the devil; Laxus and Lucy, are both talking to each other!" squealed Levy.

"Oh, you are right." Erza chuckled as she spotted them outside the window, same for Gajeel.

As for Natsu, I noticed that he did not even bother to even look. This was slightly getting under my skin. I stood up quickly and slammed my hands on my desk, scaring Levy and alarming the others.

"What's your problem, Gray?!" asked Erza.

"Nothing." I growled. I walked away from my desk and ask for Natsu to come with me to the rooftop.

* * *

 **Loki's POV**

There was something else that I remembered that I had to ask Natsu about. I was heading up the stairs of this building until I heard the voices of somebody familiar. Quickly I lifted my head up and glanced over to where the voice was coming from. Natsu and Gray were heading up the stairs to the rooftop.

I didn't bother to call out to them. I decided to keep my presences hidden until I was closer to them both. Honestly, I was sort of curious to what was going on. My only answer was that I thought they were going to ditch the whole day of class or read pervert comic books. As soon as I reached to the doors where it led to the rooftop, I heard Gray shouting.

"So are you the person or not?!" Gray said angrily.

It seems that they haven't notice my appearance yet, so I hid myself behind the door to hear what the conflict was about.

"When we were both kids, you borrowed the blue cap that my father gave to me for a while."

My attention was fully focus onto this, and I was craving to hear more.

"During my stay at Lucy's place, she showed me a picture of a little boy and her. Which is you, you were on that picture. So what exactly is going on? What is your connection?!" He shouted in rage.

"She was quite unpleased to find out I wasn't the boy just because I was the original owner of that blue cap, so why is it that she is having a hard time remembering who you are?! What is going on Natsu? I thought you were engaged to Lisanna and there was nothing you could do about it!"

I quickly slammed the door wide open and revealed myself to them. They turned their heads and were surprise to suddenly see me appear out of the blue. I am pretty sure, they still didn't know I was hiding the whole entire time.

 **"What do you mean you are engaged?!"** I shouted.

* * *

 **Lisanna's POV**

In another town a young short haired girl, named Lisanna Strauss was heading back to her hometown. She was sitting inside a limousine with her older brother; Elfman.

"Thanks for coming to pick me up Elfman," I smiled at him.

"Don't sweat it, I am glad to finally see you again Lisanna. Besides, I am the man in this family!" He said.

I been waiting. _Waiting for years for you to come back home_. The home where you belong. Natsu, you haven't come back for so long. Why aren't you coming home? You left your own fiancée by herself **waiting** for you to finally arrive back safely.

You are engaged to me after all. We are arranged to get married. Pretty soon we will have our wedding happen. Just until you finally finish the paperwork's with Zeref and Igneel.

But my darling fiancé **never returned**. I heard that you are attending Fairy Tail Academy, my darling. I hope you'll welcome me to your place with a warm embrace. I am finally able to come and see you. My older sister, Mirajane's knows that I'll be coming back home and transferring back to Fairy Tail.

I would like to see you Natsu. I came back from Edolas Academy after all.

* * *

 **[Author's Note** : _Now the drama begins! Well... along the way! :D_

 ****Edited** PLEASE READ THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO MY READERS: I created a poll that has something to do with my story. Please check it out on my profile and vote, your opinion matters! Thank you! ]**


	9. Chapter 9: A walk to the forest

**Chapter 9** **:** A walk to the forest

It was broad daylight which was now the afternoon, the weather outside was great; it was windy and sunny.

Silence has fallen inside the mansion of the Heartfilias.

Ever since Jude left to the neighboring town for his business trip.

In order to prevent the day of the upcoming event that he had planned; The Winter Ball, from being delayed. Mr. Heartfilia decided to advance on his work early, the quicker he gets things done, the results of him arriving back in time will be in place.

The only ones who remained behind was Miss Layla, Lucy, and Laxus. Along with the servants that works under the Heartfilia's household.

The lady of the house; Mrs. Heartfilia would perpetually spend her time-being in her study room. Originally she would peacefully enjoy sipping on her cup of tea reading one of her logic books, but this time it was different.

The graceful woman was taking a stroll out of the mansion to her garden. The sudden announcement that she had heard from her daughter; Lucy, caught her off-guard. Her walk to the gardens was another term for her to take a breather. Every time she wanted to calm down she would quietly leave to cool off and ponder.

She took a deep breath and stood under the shades of a tree that block the sunlight from hitting her. "What is going to happen now?" She said to herself as a disappointed look came across her face.

* * *

 **Layla's POV**

Layla couldn't get the thoughts of Lucy out of her head. During the time that the boys were told to meet up with Lucy in the gardens, something unexpected happened:

 _After the meeting with the boys were over, I was having a private dinner with Lucy and Jude. A family night together with only us three. We barely spoke a word to one another until suddenly Lucy had randomly brought up a certain someone…_

" _Father," she paused for a bit. "If I pick one of the boys, you'll send the others off, am I right?" Lucy asked._

" _That is correct." Jude said plainly, as he took a bite out of his dinner._

 _Lucy did not say something after that, but as I was watching her poke onto her food, I could tell she was giving herself time to think._

" _Well, than… I am not entirely sure about it yet, but I would like to know more about Laxus."_

I remember clearly that I froze from eating the cut up steak that was served to us. It shocked me to hear such things. However, it was such great news for Jude…

I gazed throughout the scenario of the gardens of where I stand, the breeze was slowly blowing so gently. "Natsu… What is taking you so long?"

* * *

 **Loki's POV**

I was looking for Layla Heartfilia all over the place. Until I finally spotted her under a tree of where Lucy once fell onto her deep slumbers before I carried her back to her chambers.

There was so much questions that I wanted to ask her, that I couldn't let go.

The sudden conversation that I had randomly jumped into with Natsu and Gray the other day, at school, had bothered me completely. I wasn't able to concentrate properly as I was on guard duty or in patrol. All these surprises I am finding about Natsu threw me off the edge that I wanted to hear the whole story from the mother who knew more about this complex situation than anyone else in the house.

"There you are," I said loud enough for her to hear me.

Layla gracefully turned her whole body to look at me. "Leo, what brings you here?" she asked with such generosity.

"There's something that I want to ask you in person."

"And what shall that be?" she tilted her head a little.

"I heard something from Natsu that caught me way of guard. It surprise me to hear that he was engaged to someone name Lisanna?" I took off my glasses as I looked at her, "Honestly madam, with all due with respect, I am quite uncertain what your scheme is. Since I am involved with such matters, I am curious to know exactly what is going on. I know for sure that you did gave me the job to bring the big treasure chest to Lucy. Without any explanations of why, only stating that it was her time capsule that she wanted to open it on her seventeenth birthday... Furthermore, I have not told Lucy that Natsu is the guy she has been looking for. But suddenly Laxus is somehow the mysterious boy and Mr. Heartfilia holds such hatred against Natsu for what reason actually?"

I waited for the Lady to answer the questions that I could not answer or fill in myself. She just stood there in silence as the wind continue to blow against us. She flicked her eyes down to the ground as she heaved a deep sigh that seem to be filled with guilt.

"Once I explain the story to you Loke, just promise me you will do one thing for me."

"It all depends on what I am devoting myself into, but I would like to know what it is." Leo glared at her.

"Don't tell Lucy any of this." She paused, "There is a reason to everything."

* * *

 **Lucy's POV**

Lately, I been wondering and thinking about the hostile words that Gray told me.

 **[** **Referring back to Chapter 8:**

" **I may not know the whole entire thing of what is going on. But I surely do know, that you are about to make the biggest mistake of your life. Just do me a favor will yah, give it some time before you actually think of living your life with him!"]**

I know for sure that Gray was always considerate about other people even though he doesn't want to admit it sometimes. But to think that he would say those words to me, it was like he knew for sure I would regret it as long as I live…

But, that's not the only thing I am wondering about too. Laxus and Rogue were childhood friends with Gray and Natsu. Then I found out that Natsu was actually part of a wealthy family?! Next, Laxus is the mysterious boy that I been searching for my entire life!?

"Geez! So many surprises after the next! What the heck is this?!" I shouted out.

Right next to me sat Laxus. He was eyeballing me as I covered my mouth immediately.

Today was our small little date. I wasn't sure where we were heading, but we were both inside of my limousine. We rarely spoke a word to each other, and I felt slightly awkward with the tense atmosphere I was receiving from him. The whole entire car ride, he had his arms cross and his eyes close. Not even giving me any eye contact or whatsoever.

I couldn't stop staring at him as I wondered why didn't he just told me directly from the beginning he was the mysterious boy I was looking for. Even though I was still figuring out the small pieces of Quatoria and other helpful resources I came across at that time when he showed up with the other bachelors.

Once we arrived to our destination, I was surprised to see that our small date would be taking place at the forest that would abruptly show up in my dreams. Now that I think about it, I have not been getting those sort of dreams for a while now.

"Finally we are here," Laxus said as he stretch out his arms into the air feeling a bit cramped. "They just recently build a store around here that lets you rent out boats at the lakes. Why don't you wait here while I go get us something to eat and pay for one of the boat?"

I watched as Laxus left to the stores by himself, as I stand alone in solitude. My head rotated to the side as I eyeballed the forest before me, giving me a nostalgic feeling.

Without me realizing it until a few minutes of time past, I was automatically walking deeper into the woods. My legs continued on with that walk, without me knowing where in the world was I actually going…

Inside of me, something was calling out, that I should take this path and continue on, something awaits me, but I really don't know what. I couldn't quite tell what was going on, but I listened.

The feeling of what I once felt in my dreams was coming back to my senses. Anxiety and overwhelming fear of being lost in the dark. Simply, I just ignored it. Not allowing such emotions to get to me.

I was now seeing a small dim of light ahead. The particular scene that I once witness before, like it was all déjà vu all over again. Quickly I rushed into the light that was rapidly getting brighter, and just like that I had found myself in a different area. The lake in front of me was sparkling. A beautiful scene that could capture any artists' attention to paint the very image.

"…Is this?" I uttered out in surprise. "The scene I saw in my dreams?"

"Lucy?" someone suddenly called out. My eyes widened as I turned to the person who said my name.

"Natsu…?"

"Lucy, what're you doing here?" He questioned.

Right before my eyes, I was seeing another vision next to him; the little boy of Natsu…

My heart suddenly ache as I flinched as I put my palms on my temple. Natsu recognized the pain on my face immediately and came to my assistant.

"Hey Lucy!"

"Lucy!"

"Lucy, why are you here alone?!"

"Are you okay?!"

 _ **I was seeing an image of a car coming closer to me, and hearing the voices of my own father and mother screaming in horror. The voices were echoing inside my head. All the scenes were moving in slow-motion and I could see the younger version of Natsu shouting out to my name. His face was mortified and scared….**_

 _ **Then, I was receiving pictures of him wearing a familiar blue cap that rightfully owned by Gray. But that was the end of my flashback...**_

* * *

 **Natsu's POV**

Once again I was seeing the golden hair beauty suffering in pain. It frightened me to see her in such condition. As I was the only one who was there standing by her and giving her support through the process.

I didn't know exactly what to do.

But as the time flew by, I watched as she regain back her calm composure as her heavy breathing slowly become to ease in a normal pace.

Her face didn't look terrified as it was just seconds ago.

"Lucy, are you alright?" I asked her.

I waited for my fellow classmate to speak to me, I heard her gulped, and watching her slowly take a small peek at me.

"Natsu…" she whispered. "Are you-?"

Before I was able to manage to hear her say something, someone's voice, far in the distance interrupted us.

"Hey Lucy?! Where'd you go?!"

I was already familiar to who that voice belong to. Laxus.

I turn around to Lucy who was just deeply gazing up at me. I extended my hands out to her as she slowly place her palms on top of it. Just like before, she questioned where we were heading, "Where are we going?"

I turned my head to look at her, "We are taking you back, where else?" I grinned.

Her eyes seem to widen as we both entered the forest and walk together in the darkness. She was pretty quiet throughout the way, so I thought of something that might gladly bring back the good memories of before, "When's the next time we could meet?"

I wasn't really expecting a respond at all from her, but little did I know she was sobbing in tears.

 **Lissana's POV**

"So this is the school that Natsu is attending right?" I asked Elfman and Mirajane.

The three of us where standing inside of the school's campus as they explained the changes during my absences when I was attending Edolas Academy. I was surprise to see how Fairy Tail had connections with other school campus, but that was not what I was focus on mainly.

"I can't wait to see you, Natsu." Lisanna snickered.

* * *

 **[** **Author's note:** **Hey readers! For those of you who have not voted on my poll yet. Please check it out it's on my page! The poll has something to do with my story, so** **don't ignore this note** **!**

 **I am happy to say that I finally made it this far onto the plot! Thank goodness I have written how the plot would go, but I had to make a lot of arrangements and shuffle some parts plus editing! Holy crap, sometimes I would literally get bored writing since I already wanted to reach the climax and the ending already! But I am almost there! OMG I don't know how many more chapters left, but I would like to thank you readers for reading my first story. There was so many times that I felt like stopping since I thought my story was a total fail! But I been gaining followers and favorites slowly as the days goes. It made me felt bad for those who are curious to read to the very end, and left hanging. So I am doing these for you! I would like to thank you for the virtual support. I am actually pretty embarrass to ask to leave a review, but I would really appreciate a review of what you readers thought of the story so far. If it is getting too annoying or I don't know, you tell me lol. Thank you! –Jobe]**


	10. Chapter 10: Transfer Student, Lisanna

**[Author's note:** **I was really excited when I saw I had a review and gained more followers and favorites. This is what Author's love to see guys! I would love to thank you again for the support!** Astroman1000, FuckingAwesome123, Rose Tiger, Pinklove8303, laxusdrayer2324, Reaper495, Isabella, taboadayvonne, and FreshMilkySoul **for leaving me a review. I really appreciate it! It is nice to know that the story is still keeping you entertained and making you want to know what happens next! I assure you, that reading this throughout the end will be worth it! Thank you for being patient with me!]**

* * *

 **Chapter 10** **:** Transfer Student, Lisanna

 **Lucy's POV**

Lucy was walking in the hallways of the school, thinking about the flashbacks that had occurred when she had come across Natsu unexpectedly near the big open lake. Her thoughts was aimlessly going through images that she recalled getting that very day. And she couldn't quite understand why she suddenly burst out in tears. All she could remember was her heart sinking inside of her.

The young blonde was heading to her homeroom class hoping that she'll get a chance to have a conversation with Gray. She wanted to make sure that all her pieces of what she gathered on her own was precisely on point. But, for now, she did not want to suddenly talk with Natsu when she was not confident about the situation herself.

But once the young lad had reached her class she was surprise to see a new face appear. A silver haired, young beauty.

The teacher noticed Lucy's late presence, "Miss Heartfilia, please take your seat quickly, I would like to introduce our new student to our class."

Everyone in the room was astonished to see such a beauty joining us this semester. I had my elbows on my desk as my hands were placed under my chin. While the teacher was introducing the transfer student to our class I glanced right over to Natsu who sat right beside me. His shock reaction made me question myself. He just sat there completely frozen, not even a single movement.

I heard a sound of somebody clicking their tongue as I turned my head to see who it was coming from… Gray. His very own expression showed he was rather irritated and filled with frustration. Both Natsu and Gray's facial reaction was completely different from the rest of the class. As far as I know Levy was happily listening, and Gajeel didn't care about the transfer student one bit.

"My name is Lisanna Strauss." The young girl smiled. "I actually came here in search for my fiancé." She chuckled.

"Fiance?" I quoted her. "I wonder who that is." I thought.

Just then, Lisanna was filled with sparkles of joy as she spotted Natsu from the back. "Natsuu!" she sang his name out, as Lisanna tackled him on his seat. Causing them to crash into the other desks nearby.

"UGH!" Natsu groaned loudly.

"What's going on?" questioned Levy.

"Beats me." Gajeel said as he rolled his eyes.

"Natsu, I been waiting for you to come home!" Lisanna whimpered.

Natsu rubbed the bump behind his head and looked at the girl that was on top of him, "Lisanna, what're you doing here?!"

"To see you of course! I am your fiancée after all." She smiled.

Everyone's eyes widen as they looked at the two of them except for Gray, "YOU'RE ENGAGED?!"

My eyes were twitching. I couldn't deny the fact that I was shock to the sudden surprise. This whole entire time I been wondering if Natsu would have been the boy. But now that I heard that he was engaged to Lisanna Strauss, it sounds impossible now! It probably might be Laxus after all…

* * *

 **Natsu's POV**

Later during lunch I was having a private conversation with Lisanna somewhere in Fairy Tail's campus where no one was around. It took me by surprise to see her random appearance and being put in the same classroom as I. I wonder if this was all misfortune or a coincidence.

"What're you doing here Lisanna?"

"I came here to see you Natsu." She smiled.

"What do you mean? Didn't you want to be in Edolas?" my palms slowly turned to a fist as I held back my anger.

"Yeah, but what's wrong seeing my fiancé? We are going to get married soon—"

"Lisanna! You already know that arranged married was force upon my own free will! It was not my decision!" I quickly interrupted her. She was quiet for a moment as her smile slowly vanished.

"Well, there's nothing you could do Natsu, the only way to end the contact is if I decided to end it." Lisanna told me. "I am waiting for you to sign the document that Zeref and Igneel are holding for you."

I rolled my eyes and clicked my tongue in anger, "There's no way I am signing those papers, I am not that stupid, Lisanna. I know well enough, that if I do. I'll accept the proposal and that's when the wedding would actually happen. Lisanna, you know very clear, that there is someone who I been waiting on."

Lisanna's face rapidly changed into the color of reddish-pink. I could tell that she was sort of, well, you know, jealous.

"Is that the reason why you left?! Why you did not want to come back home?! The reason why you wouldn't want to marry me at all?!" Lisanna's eyes were trembling as tears were slowly swelling up.

"Lisanna, I may have known you when we were small as well, but, I am not giving up on her."

"Even if Lucy's father holds a grudge against you because of that fatal accident that happened years ago?!"

I froze as an image of Lucy getting hit by a car, automatically played repeatedly in my head. As much as I wanted to forget that horrific tragedy… I could not. I am sure, the parents of Lucy also suffered the same way I did when we witness that scene right in front of our every own eyes.

"Just go home Lisanna, I am not coming back. And that's final. Say hello to Igneel for me though." I slowly turned around to leave, refraining from continuing the conversation before I literally took out my rage at her.

"Natsu, even if you did leave. You know very well as I, that you still hold the status of an upper-class no matter where you go, or if you did permanently leave for good!" Lisanna reminded him.

I didn't turn back to respond to her, but I know for certain that she was still eyeing me, "NATSU!" she shouted, "I am sure that she forgotten about you completely!"

Lisanna watch as her fiancé came to a halt, gazing at his back hoping for him to return back to her. But, he then continued to walk away.

* * *

 **Gray's POV**

In class, Gray was sitting on top of a desk near the window. Waiting for the lunch bell to end. He noticed from outside the transparent glass window, Natsu was walking by himself.

"Did he end it with her?" he said out-loud. He wasn't expecting anyone else to be in the classroom with him until Lucy suddenly appeared right next to him giving him a mini heart attack. "End with who?" she said.

Gray jolted back as he moved the desk he was sitting on a bit, bumping into the ones behind it. Which corrupted the straight line that was perfectly set into before. "Holy crap!" he yip, "Damn it Lucy, don't just scare me like that! You gave me a heart attack!"

Lucy let out a sheepish chuckle and apologize to him, "Sorry about that Gray, I didn't mean to do that…"

Gray was huffing deeply as he felt his heart beating like crazy. Once he felt that he calm down he glanced over at Lucy who was just standing a few feet away from him; fidgeting.

"Anyways, what brings you here so early back to class? Lunch haven't even end yet. You got a lot of time left." I told her. I was fixing the desks back in order as Lucy also helped out before I get in trouble with one of the teachers who seems like a perfectionists if things aren't put properly.

"Yeah, well, I had something to ask you." Lucy sat on the seat next to me once we finished adjusting the desks in its original pattern. While I sat on top of the desk from before.

"Okay, about?" I asked her. Lucy seem to hesitate for a while I wasn't really sure if she was going to confess to me, or I was just over-analyzing things.

"Remember that time when you told me about giving it some time?"

I crossed my arms and tilt my head a bit to the left, "Yup, I am over-thinking about the situation. Gray you're an idiot." I thought to myself.

"Um, Gray?" Lucy said.

I quickly turned my face back to her direction, clearing my throat. "Yeah, about Laxus?"

She nodded, "Well, that sort of bothered me lately, and since you are one who has a connection to my diary entry, I wanted to ask some questions."

"Go ahead."

"I been filling out the small pieces and thinking, is… Natsu the little boy I was talking about on my diary? I mean, I am not quite certain. I been getting flashbacks, and just recently I saw Natsu on one of them."

My pupils grew wide the more Lucy explained about her situation. Saying that she saw Natsu screaming out her name when she was close to getting hit by a car. And the moments that she spent with the boy that wore the blue cap, revealing as Natsu.

"I mean, I am entirely confuse myself since I am not really sure. Now that I recently found out that Natsu is engaged to Lisanna. I honestly do think it might not be him at all…" I rolled my eyes to this.

"After all, Laxus could be the one right? He seems to know the promise that I made with the young boy…I been getting flashbacks. The one I recently gotten scared me the most. But, I don't really know. Since the last time you were at my place, Sting mentioned you guys were childhood friends with Natsu…"

I continued on to listen to Lucy.

"If you were childhood friends with Natsu, and that blue hat was yours. Is that how Natsu received your cap from years ago?" She looked at me with eyes full of curiosity and wonders. I didn't really know what to say, but I had to tell her something. A way to make it simpler for her to understand.

"Yes, Lucy." I paused, "The boy you see in your picture is actually Natsu," I told her straightforwardly. Her eyes was slowly turning red, as she was about to cry out, but I could tell she was holding it in. "I am quite certain that your diary entry was about him too. But, I honestly don't know the whole story. I don't know why Natsu is engage to Lisanna at the first place." I looked down to the floor as I breathe out.

"However, I really don't know how Laxus is involved with this entirely. That is the mysterious part."

Silence then fell between us. I don't know how long it actually last, but I felt awkward at that very moment. Like I was having a sentimental moment with Lucy. Until she finally spoke,

"Gray, is that why you told me to give it some time…?" she whispered.

I nodded my head and eyeballed her again, the sun was now shining on us since we were right next to the window. "I mean, I already knew who the boy was on the picture. I was familiar with the face and the hat. But, Laxus? I don't really know his part. But for sure, I assumed that this **had something to do with your father** , Lucy."

Lucy shot at me a perplexed reaction, amused to hear me go such lengths to even bring her father to the conversation. "Knowing that Jude Heartfilia chose me as one of the bachelors' to marry you, I am quite certain **Laxus is used for something**. I am sure you would know since he is your father after all."

* * *

 **Lisanna's POV**

Lisanna was left all alone by herself as she did a comparison between Lucy and her. What was the difference between the both girls? Of course they were both pretty, females, and Natsu's childhood friend. But knowing that Lucy has lost her memories a long time ago, Lisanna knew that the blonde would have never remembered him, anyways.

However, she was slowly developing such resentment towards Lucy. What did Natsu see in her? What does Lucy have that she don't? Why Natsu couldn't move on and pick Lisanna instead. They were soon going to get married, if only Natsu signed the contract…

She envy Lucy for being able to have such a guy like Natsu. Loving her even though his situation right now was quite risky for him.

The images of Lisanna's past suddenly came across her mind as she remembered the times when she spent with Natsu during her childhood:

" _Hey, Natsu. What is that you are holding on your hand?" she asked._

" _Oh this? This is a legendary stone that Igneel gave to me. He said it's called Quackoria? Or was it Catoria? Quatloria?"_

" _You mean Quatoria?" she sweat-drop._

" _Yeah! How did you know Lisanna?"_

" _Obviously, who wouldn't know the famous stone; Quatoria? Even my brother and sister knows what it is!"_

" _Really? What's so famous about it anyway? It looks like a normal stone to me."_

" _Oh Natsu, you got a lot to learn. If you find information about Quatoria on books, it doesn't really give you much details. Since it seems like you hold the last stone that exist in mankind today!"_

" _Woah seriously?"_

" _Yup, I heard from Mira that in the folktales, it stores all the memories of your life with that person close to you."_

" _Close to me?"_

" _Yup! Like a significant other! A love one that you hold so dear in your heart!"_

" _Geez, Lisanna that sounds pretty cheesy for me. Oh, I know! Why don't I try smashing this into tiny pieces?! Just to see what happens!"_

" _NO NATSU! If you do that you'll destroy the last Quatoria in this earth! Who knows where you could find this stone!"_

" _So, all you have to do is just travel and look for it. Geez. How hard is that?"_

" _Dummy! This stones exist a long time ago! When Dragons were still rulers of the lands! Why do you think I said it might be the last stone in this planet?!"_

" _Alright already. Chillax Lisanna gosh!"_

I chuckled under my breath. It seems like those fun times I had with Natsu slowly disappeared. Right now, I am in a war against Lucy. I need to try and get Natsu back! Also, in a way for him to finally choose me. That's the reason why I came here after all…


	11. Chapter 11: Story of Jude's Hatred

**Chapter 11:** The story of Jude's Hatred

Layla Heartfilia was looking through Jude's office, where the library was originally assigned in. She wasn't there alone, but with Loki as her companionship.

With Jude gone in his business trip, it allowed them to have more accuse entering his office without him questioning their every movements. Usually Jude would quietly work on a pile of papers, scattered around his desk that he retrieved from work. Documents from meetings, ownerships, bills, a record of his money being spent on, personal backgrounds of people's biography, resumes by people who are applying to work for him, and etc.

Everyone knew that Mr. Heartfilia was once a gentle, kind-hearted man back in the days when Lucy was still very young. Until one day, he simply changed. He had become more intimating, strict, controlling, demanding, and… workaholic.

He use to take his time off to spend time with Miss Layla and his daughter; Lucy. Now, those have changed when he concentrated more at his work and mainly put that as his top priority. **Why?** _You'll soon find out…_

Miss Layla was scheming through the books stack into the bookshelves. She was looking for a specific book that she knew that was stored in here. Since she was the one who hid it in the shelves herself, it took her awhile to remember where she last put the book away. Until she stumbled upon it. "Here it is." She said happily.

Loke looked away from the books as he made his way towards her.

"Loke, I am sure Lucy might have shown you a picture of a little boy next to her, am I right?"

"Yeah, what about it?" he asked.

"One of the pictures, Natsu, himself put it here. Knowing very well that Lucy would come to find more information about that stone necklace, Quatoria."

"Wait, how was he able to come in, when Jude was here?"

"Easy. Once Jude had left, he hurried in to put the picture print next to the book. It is surprising to know that Natsu still remembers Lucy so well." She giggled.

Loke showed a small smirk on his face, "So, are you going to explain?"

"Yes. Come take a look at this." I handed the book to Loke as he gently took it from me which was actually an album I hidden away for so long.

"A picture book?"

"Yes, these are pictures of Natsu and Lucy back when they were young." Layla pointed out. "They were really close back than…"

"But, what happened?" Loke watched as Layla sighed with her eyes full of sorrow.

* * *

 **Layla's POV**

" _Before my husband; Jude developed such resentment and grew such hatred towards Natsu._

 _Lucy had told us that she one day, she wanted to become Natsu's future bride._

" _Mama! Papa! I want to be Natsu's wife!"_

 _We were happy to know that our daughter was full of happiness and a bundle of joy every time she was with Natsu. Of course, she was the only child that I bare. She was really ecstatic to finally have a playmate._

 _At the start, we didn't really know that he was the boy that Lucy would always seek for. We were always worrying about her health and her condition. Because ever since she came back to us, after being found by the search crew, she was awfully quiet._

 _Lucy never told us about Natsu, we always wondered where she would disappear off too at parties, or by herself when she left to visit the village on our land. That's when I found out about Quatoria. However, Jude did not know about the stone that Lucy wore around her neck. It was always hidden from his sight._

 _I only found out about it, when one day, we were visiting one of Jude's business partners; Igneel. We did not know that Natsu lived in the same mansion. At that time, I noticed how Lucy suddenly disappeared off on her own again. As a mother, I did worry and decided to go look for her._

 _As I was lingering somewhere in one of the random hallways aimlessly looking for the girl that resembled me. I saw a glow coming from outside of the window of where I was walking that caught me by surprise._

 _When I gazed out the window, I notice the shining glow that was around Lucy's neck and suddenly vanish. In front of her, near the fountain, was Natsu. I wasn't familiar with who the little boy was since I never seen him before. Seeing that big smile on my daughter's face that I had long waited to see again, as she embrace him, I could figure out that this was the boy she was looking for the entire time._

 _Natsu and Lucy always played when they were little. The next time I saw the young boy; Natsu, was at our vacation house near the beach. Igneel had brought him along just for the sake of our daughter._

 _Because of them, we became close to Igneel, and we did grew fond of Natsu. After all, he was the reason why Lucy always had a big smile on her face._

 _Natsu always came to our household to visit, just so he could hang out with Lucy. And every time they have the chance to do so, they always had something to do._

 _I knew Lucy always wrote diary entries because of how much she loved to write. So I already assumed she would involve Natsu in her writing._

 _Once she revealed the ruby ring that Natsu had given to her the day we visited the beach hut. She told Jude and me about the promise that she and Natsu made together for their future._

 _ **A promise when they will one day get married to each other**_ _._

 _As much as we loved Lucy, we thought that Natsu will be suitable to be Lucy's groom. We both decided to appear on Igneel's doorstep without notifying him about our sudden visit._

 _We wanted to clarify and settle things down with Mister Igneel about Natsu and Lucy's promise for the future. We wanted our little girl's dreams to come true. Not only for her to fantasize about but turning her wishes into a reality._

 _By the time we got there, we knew that Lucy would immediately rush into the mansion to look for Natsu._

 _Igneel at the time was trimming the shrubs in his garden. When he notice our sudden appearance before him. We wanted to bring up the conversation about Natsu and Lucy, but before we could speak a word of it. We heard a familiar voice calling out to Lucy. Jude and I saw Lucy rushing out of the mansion crying in tears. We weren't really sure of what was going on. But, before we could get a chance to figure out the conflict of what just happened. We saw our daughter running out to the road as a car was driving by._

" _ **LUCYYY!"**_

 _We were shock to witness our own daughter get hit by a car. She was losing so much blood that we thought we will lose her for good this time. However, I did not put the blame on Natsu. But, my husband took it out on him. That's when he became to hold such a grudge against him._

 _A mere little boy who was purely innocent. At such a young age, he might have felt guilty and put all the blame on himself._

 _Jude remember the scene when he saw our daughter crying, clearly. So he immediately assumed that this was all Natsu's doing. Breaking our daughter's fragile, sensitive heart._

 _After taking our daughter to the hospital. We were all relief to hear that she was going to be okay. But they then included that Lucy fell into a coma. We were scared that she will never wake up... Slowly but surely, Jude's resentment increased against Natsu._

 _Thankfully it only last for three weeks. But something was pretty strange about her, when we were finally given the permission to see Lucy, she did not shine as brightly as she did before. Her facial expression was blank and gloomy. Her chocolate brown eyes that usually shine with a nice glow into it, seem so hollow, like her life was shattered into pieces._

 _Our daughter had a bandage wrapped around her head and an arm case. Jude was speechless to see our daughter in such a terrible condition. He was wondering where her ray of sun shines went. Her carefree smiles that she always given us every time we saw her. That adorable face of hers that felt like the cure to our everyday stress. It was all gone. Simply vanish. She was, just, depressing._

 _But to our surprise, when Natsu was given the opportunity to see Lucy personally, given the authority to do so by Jude... She didn't remember anything of who he was. No memory of him stored inside her head. Or what he meant to her…_

" _It's nice to see you doing well, Lucy."_

" _Thank you…."_

" _Lucy…?"_

" _May I ask who you are?"_

" _Very funny Luce, it's Natsu! Natsu Dragoneel!"_

"... _?"_

 _Nothing seem to ring a bell… Not even his full name. It took him in great shock._

 _The doctors weren't exactly sure what lead to her sudden disappearance of her memory. But they figured it might have something to do with her depression. At the end, Jude saw this as a great opportunity to prevent Natsu to get anywhere near Lucy. Though he was pretty harsh towards the boy, who was only innocent of the situation._

" _I know you are close to Lucy. But there's a request that I would like to make, Mister Dragoneel, and Mister Igneel."_

 _Igneel was there at the time to come company Natsu…_

" _It's disappointing that it had to come to this. But, there's no other choice for me to make in order to keep my daughter safe from you."_

 _For sure, Natsu was too young to comprehend of what was going on._

" _To this day on, I forbid you on ever coming closer to Lucy or having any contact with her. I hope you'll understand that as her guardian and a parent, I cannot risk losing my only daughter, again."_

 _And like that, they both went towards their own separate ways. I know this was quite a big shock for Natsu…_

 _But you already fully known that the hatred that Jude had for Natsu still lingers onwards. My husband never given Natsu the chance to explain himself of the complex that had occurred in his side of the story, which he never meant no harm._

 _I felt guilty to have the two separate like that and how Lucy and Natsu were so very close to each other since their childhood. I also notice something about Lucy's strange attitude. So, before Lucy entered her freshman year of High School in Fairy Tail…_

 _I wrote Natsu a letter hoping that he still hold the same feelings he did for my daughter._

 _In addition to that, I also wrote on the letter how I would gladly like to help him accomplish his childhood promise to my daughter. That is the very reason why he appeared randomly in the mansion."_

As I was explaining the story to Loke, we were already in my study room. I was walking towards my desk, opening the center drawer. I took out an envelope that said, 'To Natsu, From Layla.'

I took a good look at the envelope and slowly opened it, taking the letter out for Leo to read.

 _"Dear Natsu,_

 _How are you? Please excuse the sudden letter I'll be writing to you. Things did not turn the way it was supposed to be. I know there's a reason to everything and I am certain that you never gotten to tell your side of the story…_

 _My deepest apologies of how my husband treated you six years ago._

 _I heard you were arranged to a marriage to one of the noble families that was arranged by Zeref. Pardon me for sticking my nose to your situation, I heard everything from Igneel. I am not sure if it has been cancelled or not, but I hope you'll continue to read on of what I am writing to you, without throwing this letter away. Hopefully you will reconsider the thought of that._

 _There has been a few signs I notice about Lucy, she found some areas to feel familiar during the times I spent alone with her. But she isn't quite sure about the nostalgic feeling she is getting whenever we visit our beach hut._

 _I know deep inside of Lucy's heart the feelings still lingers for you. The day we arrived to your place before the car accident, we were only coming to ask Igneel to arrange a marriage date with Lucy once she has reached the legible age to marry. Her seventeenth birthday will be celebrated next year._

 _I have thought of a scheme to see you in private without Jude threatening you away or finding out about your presences inside of our home. Hopefully, you'll come to the mansion and we could discuss this conversation further in my study room._

 _I hope you will come. I will await for your arrival._

 _Sincerely, Layla Heartfilia"_

And exactly as I assumed, Natsu still hold Lucy important to his heart. There was no way he could deny it.

Because he would have thrown away my letter from the very beginning...

* * *

 **[ Author's Note: Hey readers! I hope this chapter made some sense. Please let me know in a review if it seems sort of confusing or something I been editing this chapter like crazy. Or just tell me what you thought about this! I hope some of you understood half of the mystery! I mean who doesn't love reviews from their readers? **

**Also please readers, don't forget to vote on my poll! It is shown on my profile page! It'll be open until I am close to the ending of this story! So don't forget to stop by and vote!]**


	12. Chapter 12: Natsu's Past

**Chapter 12:** Natsu's Past

 **Loke's POV**

I was firmly holding on to the letter as I was reading through it. I understood pretty darn well now, that Jude was only doing his part as a parent, just for the sake of not losing his only daughter all over again. If I were to place myself on his shoes I would have also separated my child. But what I am not understanding is why Miss Layla would help out Natsu and why does she have this letter. Written along the lines of the letter;

" _ **I know there's a reason to everything and I am certain that you never gotten to tell your side of the story…"**_

I shifted my eyes towards Mrs. Heartfilia, putting down the paper on her desk. She was standing beside the window, looking out at her beautiful garden that she couldn't stop admiring so much. Placing both of my hands in my pocket, I asked her, "So, what's Natsu's reason, did he tell you? Did he do something to Lucy?"

She heaved a deep sigh, "Natsu…" she paused, "Never did anything to her. He was always loyal and committed towards Lucy."

I raised up an eyebrow and frown, "I am not understanding where you are going with this."

Lady Layla slowly turned herself around, locking her eyes with me. "It was never Natsu fault to begin with. He was pure innocent, and Jude never bothered to hear his side of the story. My husband just jumped into the conclusion of assuming that it was all Natsu's fault."

I blinked, pretty much dumbfounded.

"I don't blame Jude, it is a normal reaction to feel like that when it involves your little girl. But, Natsu's side of the story was never explained, until he finally met up with me secretly…"

* * *

 **Natsu's POV**

Natsu was sitting outside of his small house at the front porch. Along with his blue exceed sitting right beside him. He had no t-shirt on, revealing his abs and the muscles on the upper portion of his body. The cold breeze was gently blowing against the two friends. They watch as the leaves were being carried away with the wind, taking flight to its upcoming journey.

"Natsu, would you like some of my fish?" his best friend lifted up the raw fish in front of him.

Natsu glimpse over at the small cat giving him one of usual wide grins. "Maybe later pal, I don't seem to have much of an appetite at the moment."

"Oh… Okay." Happy noticed something was wrong. It was rare for Natsu not to have a big appetite. He glanced over at him, seeing that the pink haired boy still gazing over at the autumn trees once again. The blue cat wished there was something that he could do to cheer up his pal, but he didn't know how.

I couldn't stop thinking about the time when Lucy was in that accident years ago. Lisanna's voice still echos in my head endlessly;

 **[Reffering back to Chapter 10;**

" **Natsu! I am sure that she forgotten about you completely!"]**

It hurt me to believe that what Lisanna is saying is a fact. I don't know if I could continue on with Miss Layla's plans if my time investing on this would all go to waste…

My mind suddenly brought up the times that I spent with Lucy during childhood. Her voice calling out to my name, how she smiled, and her cute giggles. A small smile came across my face, but it quickly vanished when the image of Lucy's accident randomly burst out of nowhere.

Happy noticed the horrifying expression I made. "NATSU ARE YOU OKAY?!"

I was stunned for a moment, and quickly shook the thought of it off.

I heared Happy calling my name, "NATSU?!" as tears slowly swelled up from those big eyes of his.

I turned my head towards him. "Are you okay Natsu…?" he sniffled.

"Yeah… Sorry, I just remembered something."

"Remembered what?"

"Something unpleasant…"

 _I remembered everything that happened that day clearly. Even though I had a terrible memory, this was a completely different story. It had something to do with someone I held important to me, so it wasn't easy to just forget. When it took a big effect on you…_

 _I was having a conversation with Igneel of wanting to go over to Lucy's place and hang out. To make things clear, Igneel is my caretaker even when Zeref isn't around, Igneel is perpetually there for me no matter what. The only person that knew about how much I loved Lucy was him._

I haven't told the news yet to Zeref since he was always busy with other matters.

" _Hey Igneel, I want to go to the Heartfilia's mansion again!"_

" _What? Again?!"_

" _Yeah. What's wrong with that?"_

" _You been going there a lot lately…"_

" _Yeah, so?" I sneered as I picked my nose._

" _Natsu, stop doing that."_

" _So, are you going to drop me off?!"_

" _I actually have to tend the gardens… But, alright."_

" _YEAAH!" I cheered._

 _Suddenly, Zeref made his appearance back home, I never really understood why my older brother always had to leave, all I know he just had important business to attend._

" _I am back from my travels."_

" _Zeref, when did you get back?" Igneel asked in great surprise._

" _Just a while ago," he simply responded with a plain reaction, he then turned his gaze to me, "Natsu, there's something I would like to talk to you about something, so I suggest you put your plans on hold for a bit. I would like to talk to you privately in the living room."_

" _WHAT?!" he groaned, "Is it important?!" I yelled out to him,_

" _Yes it is." Zeref continued to walk down the dark ail of the hallway._

 _A grimace look came across my face as I followed him, "This better be quick."_

" _Come find me at the gardens when you are done Natsu." Said Igneel._

" _OKAY!"_

 _Being the impatient little boy I was, I couldn't wait to finally leave and hang out with Lucy. But, I didn't expect the sudden conversation that Zeref and I would discuss about._

 _Our argument lasted until the afternoon. Little did I know, Lucy happened to arrive at that time, searching for me and once she did, it took her by great surprise when she eavesdrop on my conversation with Zeref._

" _What do you mean you already made a contract of an arranged marriage for me_?!"

" _The contract with the Strauss families has already been signed by me, Natsu_. The youngest daughter _grew fond of you. I know you are friends with her."_

" _What do you mean already signed?! Without me knowing beforehand?! There's someone that I already like!" I shouted at him with rage._

 _Zeref's eyes grew wide, he then frown, "…You never spoke any of this to me Natsu…"_

" _That's because you are barely here!" I growled._

 _Zeref's eyes was filled with guilt, the room was filled dead silence until he spoke, "There's nothing I could do now, Natsu…"_

 _At that moment I heard something dropped on the floor, something shiny was rolling towards my way, when I bend down to pick up the sparkling object, it took me by surprise to see it was the same ring I given to Lucy. I heard loud footsteps from the hallways, quickly I ran out of the room ignoring Zeref when he called out to me._

 _I already knew what just happened. Lucy misunderstood the situation!_

" _LUCY!" I called out to her, spotting her from a far._

" _LUCY! WAIT!"_

 _When I reach outside of where the front entrance was, I heard a loud scream,_ _ **"LUCYYY!"**_

 _Rushing towards the bellowing noise, I was stunned and extremely mortified. Mr. and Mrs. Heartfilia were rushing towards their daughter's aid in panic. I just stood there, paralysis, seeing the crimson liquid spreading in a rather quick pace. Lucy's blood…_

 _I remember how Jude had a very intimidating expression shown upon his face when he looked at me._

 _Once Igneel contacted the ambulance, Lucy was immediately rushed to the hospital. She was in a critic condition so the operation was put on an emergency on her case. I remember waiting in the waiting room along with Igneel and Lucy's parents. Jude couldn't stop cursing out at me, I was too young to understand the situation, so Igneel handled the problem and converse with him._

 _I couldn't forget how irritated and frightening Mr. Heartfilia's face was. How he scowled at me…_

 _After a few days past since the incident, I, for some reason wasn't allowed to see Lucy when the Doctor came to announce about her condition. But you had no idea how relief I was to hear that she was okay! Until they included, "However, your daughter has fallen into a coma. We aren't entirely sure when she is going to wake up…"_

 _Mrs. Layla was bursting out in tears and Mr. Heartfilia was still in an outrage. Demanding to see his daughter. I was left alone with Igneel in the waiting room, still feeling horrible._

 _As the days past and goes, it had reached three weeks and Igneel quickly informed me about Lucy's awakening. This time, I was given the privilege to come see Lucy in person. I was so stoke. I was filled with excitement to see her again. I showed up at the hospital in one of my formal attires, with a bouquet of her favorite flowers in my hands, and in my pocket was the ruby ring._

 _Mr. Heartfilia and Mrs. Heartfilia gave me privacy to talk to her personally. Jude seem to be pretty calm this time, but I could tell he wasn't pleased with my appearance. I was nervous, I didn't really know what to expect, but one of her usual happy faces. Upon entering her hospital room, I saw her head wrapped around with a bandage and she had an arm case on._

 _She smiled brightly at her parents who came to visit her, but, for some reason she didn't give me the same smile she did to them._

" _It's nice to see you doing well, Lucy," I smiled happily._

" _Thank you…" She said quietly._

 _I stared right at her eyes, I realize how it lack the sparkle it once had, "Lucy…?"_

 _She flicked her eyes away at the flowers and small box that held the ring inside of it, which I gently placed on top of her, "May I ask who you are?" she suddenly asked._

 _I thought everything was a joke, finding the situation to be rather hysterical, "Very funny Luce. It's Natsu! Natsu Dragoneel!" I gave a sheepish laugh. But nothing seems to ring a bell for her._

 _When I informed the doctor, he wasn't sure of the conclusion. "I'm not sure if she blocked away the memory of you from depression or something… That's something I'm uncertain about. My apologies…"_

 _I watched as the doctor left for his next case. Mr. and Mrs. Heartfilia were listening close by. I didn't know exactly what was going on but being around Jude gave me a really bad vibe…_

" _I know you are close to Lucy. But there's a request that I would like to make, Mister Dragoneel, and Mister Igneel." He cleared his throat as Mrs. Heartfilia gazed down at the flooring._

" _It's disappointing that it had to come to this. But, there's no other choice for me to make in order to keep my daughter safe from you."_

 _I couldn't quite comprehend what Jude was applying here, but I'm sure that he was putting all the faults at me._

" _To this day on, I forbid you on ever coming closer to Lucy or having any contact with her. I hope you'll understand that as her guardian and a parent, I cannot risk losing my only daughter, again."_

 _How much I felt like breaking, the words he said had really pierce my heart and shattered it into pieces._

 _The only thing that made me happy was being taken away from me. I felt so hollow inside, the same empty eyes that Lucy gave off earlier… Was now happening to me._

" _It's not my fault…" I thought._

 _I decided to accept the reality of things and go my separate ways. I stayed quiet about how I felt during the times Zeref asked me if there was still someone I held dear to me._

 _Six years past and I was now heading to my freshman year of high school, I was surprised to receive a letter from Miss Layla out of the blue._

 _And just like that I quickly reacted after I finished reading the letter. I left my household on my own free will, knowing that Igneel completely understands the decision I was making. I transferred to Fairy Tail Academy which took Gray by surprised to see me again._

 _I was surprised to be in the same classroom as her. Her first question she asked me was, "Are you a noble?"_

 _It seems like she totally forgotten I was the little boy from the hospital…_

 _With my situation right now, being scared, I shook my head, "No."_

 _Her hair grown longer, and she became obviously beautiful…. We haven't talk like this in years._

 _I miss you a lot. I miss us. Lucy will you ever remember me?_

A single tear came rolling down my cheeks as I still sitting on the front porch of my house. With Happy by my side, I know for sure I was going to be fine.

* * *

 **Layla's POV**

"Do you understand now?" I questioned Leo. He was sitting on the leathered couch beside me.

He had his elbows on both of his knees, his hands folded in front of him. I could tell he was in deep thought.

"Everyone has their own stories and reasons to everything. You can't just assume and blame the fault on someone else when you know nothing about their side."

"I understand completely," Leo said, lifting his head up high, "So what's your plan next?"

I turned around to face my window, my image was reflecting upon it as I let a smirk come across my face.

* * *

 **[Author's Note: To my fellow anonymous who had currently left me a review, I am hereby happy to hear your opinion of how you felt about the story so far. Thank you for the long explanation of what you are understanding from the story. I am quite surprise to see that you were able to comprehend that Jude was only fulfilling his job as a parent. I wanted to make him seem like the bad guy from the beginning just to stimulate the readers. For that matter, I think I did a good job on that…(?) I was actually having a hard time plotting out the next chapter, since I wasn't sure if the other readers were understanding the situation with the different perspective of each character. But once I saw your review, I completely had a brief idea of how to continue. Thank you for your review, I really like those who express their opinions.]**


	13. Chapter 13: Lisanna's POV

[ **Author's Note:** _To Anonymous; it's actually hard to reply to you when you don't have an account... Lucy did forgotten about Natsu completely. Yes there's things that could occur that could stimulate it from coming back. I didn't do much of her getting flashbacks since I had another idea for it later on the story (if I do reach that far), & for your other question, I might have to let your curiosity run wild cause I don't want to put any spoilers, lol I am REALLY sorry! But thank you for giving me your honest opinion of what route this story may take place! I was honestly having a writer's block, staring at my word program without knowing what to write… I should really plot on paper again… My mind was completely blank and I was uninspired. And I know at some extend it may seem obvious, the original story I made was confusing. I had a few friends read the first 3 chapters of it and they got so confuse whether it was really based on NaLu since everything was all over the place! So now it's this version! __**TADA!**_ _:D ]_

* * *

 **Chapter 13:** Lisanna's POV

It already past two weeks since I transferred to Fairy Tail. I was able to adapt to the different environment. Slowly, I was able to fit in and become friends with people.

My assigned seat was behind Gray. It disappointed me that I was only one sit away from Natsu. But I am glad that I was put into the same classroom as him.

The fact that Natsu's other childhood buddy; Lucy, was in the same room and she sat right next to him, disappoints me…

Those two gets along pretty well. They always exchanged conversations in class. They laugh, joke, prank and get in trouble. Though most parts was mostly Natsu's doing.

One time when Gildarts was in a middle of a lecture and boasting off about his trips on where he traveled, right on the corner of my eyes, I notice Lucy and Natsu secretly passing each other a small paper in class.

Despite the fact that the back of Gray's head would block some parts of my view, it was still easy for me to see what they were doing.

When I was watching Lucy opening the folded piece of paper that Natsu tossed over at her, she almost burst out into laughter, then Natsu would end up laughing until they were both caught.

"What are you two laughing about between my lessons?" Gildart frowned.

"Nothing." Lucy panicked, hiding the small note inside her palms, quickly thinking of something that would distract her.

Natsu just grinned at Gildart's and straight-forwardly told him, "Nah, just laughing at your wonderful stories."

It wasn't a surprise for us that Gildart's easily fell for such lies…

When he decided to return back on bragging about his amazing adventures, Lucy and Natsu glanced at each other and snickered.

The next time I saw them together was during lunch time, they were sitting next to each other on the grass where the school's gardens were. This is where I would normally see Lucy by herself reading a book.

However, I cannot deny the fact that it makes me jealous that Lucy is able to make him smile which is always over-load with sunshine's and eternal happiness by the look of his face. I don't remember when was the last time I seen that bright smile of his. It is way beyond what I could do, only she could make it happen…

Honestly, it's pretty sad that Lucy doesn't seem to have any trace of any memories of him and her. I only knew about the situation when I over-heard the conversation between Zeref and Igneel years ago.

Not to seem self-centered and all, but is it wrong to wish that Lucy remains to forget about Natsu so they could both moved on…? It may seem like a selfish request after all…

Whenever I ran around school campus in search for Natsu, I would perpetually find him chatting with Miss Lucy. Their conversation would always seem so endless, like there wasn't going to be a next time they would be able to talk like this.

There was always something to talk about between the two. It bothered me how Natsu doesn't give me that kind of attention or time of day to form a conversation with me, or spend it with his own fiancée. It was always Lucy.

One day I went up to him, "Hey Natsu, would you like to eat lunch with me?" I asked him with a friendly smile on my face.

"Sorry, maybe next time Lisanna. I already planned to have lunch with Lucy." He waved to me as he ran off to look for her.

The next time I asked him something, he was wondering around school campus by himself, "Natsu!" I ran up to him, "Would you like to hang out with me?"

"Oh hey Lisanna." He stop to talk to me, "Sorry, I actually have something to do."

I watched him ran off before I could even say anything to him. Until Lucy suddenly made her appearance out of nowhere, he begin to form up a conversation with her that was longer than ours.

I thought things were just a coincidence and I caught him at the wrong time. But this continued for a while now. Natsu would give me an excuse to reject me like every other day, then he would go off somewhere and when Lucy was spotted he would talk to her, totally forgetting about what he needed to do.

Witnessing everything in front of my eyes is harder to accept. But I cannot deny the reality of things. It was a great disappointment how none of my ideas were going to happen or wasn't going to process.

My idea was to get Natsu to fall in love with me instead of Lucy. So why can't he just let her go already? Lucy doesn't seem to remember anything about their memory together anyways…

"Why do you keep on ignoring me, Natsu?!" I yelled at him.

We were both behind the school where no one was around. In high hopes, I expect that no one was there to see the ruckus that I was making and the situation we were both in.

"What are you talking about Lisanna, I wasn't ignoring you at all." Natsu raised his eyebrows.

"That's a lie, Natsu!" I snap, "Every time I ask you about something, you always come up with an excuse to talk to Lucy!"

"What?" he uttered out in a confuse tone, it seems pretty real to fall for his acting, but I didn't. "Lisanna, what are you—"

"It's obvious that you are trying to avoid me Natsu, why don't you just admit it!" I groaned, "I am sure you are trying to get close to Lucy because school is the only reason you could finally talk to her!"

"I wouldn't deny that is true." Natsu said to me in a straightforward manner.

"I knew it!" I stomped my feet on the ground, "You were actually trying to avoid me!"

"Lisanna. You're jumping into conclusions. I was never avoiding you—" Natsu rolled his eyes feeling pretty annoyed.

"You always talk to Lucy—it's always Lucy. Everywhere I go, I see you with Lucy!" I said in a mocking tone, "Lucy this! Lucy that! Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!" I begin to stomp my feet on the ground repeatedly. "I am your fiancée why can't you at least give me some attention!" I placed my palms on my chest.

Natsu face palmed, "Lisanna, I never agreed to this engagement at all!" He sighed, "It wasn't my doing, and how many times do I have to go through this?"

"Natsu!" I growled, "You cannot stop the engagement without the other party's approval!" I reminded him, "And I never accept to cancel the arrangement!" I crossed my arms, looking at him angrily.

He looked away, "I already know that." He kept quiet for a moment and said, "But, I will not sign it."

I clenched my hands and trembled a bit, "Why do you keep on trying to talk to her Natsu?! What's the point of it! It's useless! Lucy's father will never agree to it! You are probably wasting your time if you think there's a possibility!" I screamed at him.

He still had his face looking away from me as I continued on to vent on him, "Why can't you just move on?!It's already been at least six years now!"

"Lisanna…" Natsu said in a deep tone. I came to a stop as he suddenly brought a grin on his face.

"I am continuing because I made a promise. I wouldn't know unless I try, I am sure it will be worth the sacrifice investing my time. That's how much she's worth it."

My eyes widened up in shock. Natsu was going to go through such lengths for a girl like Lucy. Everything seems so unbelievable for me at this rate. There's no way I have a chance to make Natsu pick me over her or develop any feelings towards me.

What is it about Lucy that makes you want her Natsu? I don't understand… She and I knew you when were just kids. But she won you over…

By the time we ended our conversation, Natsu and I were heading back to class as I tailed behind him, quietly.

Lucy made her appearance when she was walking out of the door from the classroom, when she spotted us together, she was relief to finally see Natsu, "Finally I found you!" she said with glee.

"Hey Lucy, what's sup?" He raised his hands.

"I was looking for you everywhere, I had something to talk to you about." Lucy smiled.

"And what's that?" he responded.

"Since our winter break is about to start pretty soon, my mother thought it'll be a great idea to plan our stay over at our beach house for a couple days. She told me I could invite friends with me. I wanted to ask if you could come along," Lucy grinned, she happened to tilt her head a bit and look at me, "You too Lisanna, would you like to come?"

I looked at her with such disbelief. I see her as my worst nemesis but she thought of me as a friend of hers… We haven't even hanged out once… I didn't know what to say. Whether or not I should accept or reject the invitation…

"She'll go." Natsu answered for me. "I'll go as well too." He grinned.

"Alright! You could invite some of your friends if you would like." Lucy added, "Since there wouldn't be much boys around only Gajeel and Gray."

"Oh sure." Natsu replied.

"Well, I'll see you later. I have to find the others I want to invite." Lucy waved.

"Alright, see you around Lucy." Natsu smiled.

I was in lost in thoughts here. I wasn't really paying attention to the conversation they were having. But I know for sure, I didn't want to come at all…

* * *

[I _ **am not entirely satisfied with this chapter… since I had a big writer's block… I couldn't think of what to type. I rewrote this like, five times with a different scene… But I want to apologize for the late post! I usually submit a new chapter for this story on Tuesdays, Saturday's... Sorry for the wait! This is one of the shortest chapters I wrote for this story. I am also working on my other stories… So I might have to start scheduling this story in a different day. Thank you for being patient with me! And I'll do my best to make the next chapter longer!**_ ]


	14. Chapter 14: Beach House

**[** **Author's Note:** I would like to give a shout out to **laxusdrayer2324** for being a great supported reviewer. Thank you so much!

And as promise guys' I made this chapter longer I did the best I could since I still have a writer's block. I post early since I might not be able to post on Saturday. **]**

* * *

 **Chapter 14:** Beach House

 **NARRATOR**

 _It'll be a few more days until Jude comes back from his business trip at the neighboring town. Soon, the Winter Ball he had intended to bring up will start. As Jude is away for work, he is preparing the invitations for the guests, business partners, and other important people to come attend. Knowing that Jude Heartfilia runs the biggest company throughout the land, no one will object to this sudden invitation._

 _The blonde teenager was inside her chambers scattering everything in her room. Her clothes were tossed everywhere. Her wardrobe and desk was rummage through, leaving the drawers hanging wide open. Her blanket and pillows were piled up in the middle of the bed. Books and papers were laying around all over the place!_

 _Lucy was in a hurry, she was looking for her necklace; Quatoria, but she couldn't remember the last time she had last placed it. It has been a while now that she last had it on her palms._

"Where is it?!" _Lucy continued to toss more stuff increasing the mountainous disaster she had already made. She kept looking back at the place she already checked just to make sure of herself that she did not miss it. She had already made a pattern walking back and forth from the bathroom to the walkthrough closet searching for the stone inside the pockets of her clothes, then to her room._

"None! None! Noneee!" _She shouted out loudly. She ran her fingers through her hair in a messily way._ "It's nowhere to be found! I already have the Quatoria book in my luggage!" _she sighed with such great disappointment and flop herself on her bed, laying down on her back. Lucy already had her luggage prepared with extra clothes for her stay at the beach house. Ever since she had that conversation with Gray;_

 **[** **Reffering to Chapter 10:**

" **The boy you see in your picture is actually Natsu"**

" **I am quite certain that your diary entry was about him too. But, I honestly don't know the whole story. I don't know why Natsu is engage to Lisanna at the first place."]**

 _She's been trying to get closer to Natsu. Observing him, and getting to know him more, and recently they had been talking a lot often. But then, the sudden thoughts of Laxus being used by her father came in mind. Lucy frowned when she remembered about Laxus saying he was the young boy from her childhood, and now that Gray admitted that it was actually Natsu on the picture, she was getting more confused. When she was completely lost in her own thoughts, a knock came on the door._

 _ **Knock Knock**_

"Princess, are you ready? We are leaving soon." _Virgo announced. The maiden opened the door, welcoming herself into her territory, Loke came along and they were both stunned to see the room, well, disorganized. Lucy always kept her room well-maintained and she would complain if she spotted a mess, she would quickly clean it for herself, even if the maids told her not to._

"What. The. Heck. Happened. Here?" _Loke paused on each word_. "Did a trespasser came by? Should I inform everyone, princess?" _Virgo questioned._

 _Lucy got off her bed and carried her school bag._ "No I was the one who made that mess, rare isn't it." _She told them without any shame._ "I was just looking for something, but I can't find it anywhere…" _she frowned, pinching the bridge of her nose._

"I see. I'll inform the maids to clean up your room once we leave," _Loke grabbed two of the luggage that were waiting beside her door and carried it out._ "I'll meet you at the car."

 _Lucy nodded her head. She made her way out of her room, down the stairs, and outside at the front entrance of the door with Virgo ushering her along the way. Capricorn was offering a hand to Lady Layla, that he will gladly take her luggage from her and put it in the trunk. The kind-hearted woman showed her courtesy to him and made her way inside the limo, patiently waiting for the others to arrive. Laxus was the second to enter, then Lucy with Virgo, and last but not least Loke. Once everything was set, they left the Heartfilia's residence._

* * *

 **Lucy's POV**

'How long has it been since I last visited the beach house that my parent's own? I can't really recall the last memories that I had spent my time there with my family…

We usually visited the beach house before the ending of the year, I don't know exactly what made us stop doing that… But, this time my mother announce that we should spend a few days of our break there. This isn't the first time that we went without my father, but this is the _first_ that I'll be spending it with friends. And it's actually pretty exciting to me!'

It was a long hour drive to reach our destination but we finally got there. My body was feeling cramped by just sitting inside the limo for hours. I know the others too. "Finally we are here!" I stretched out my body, hearing pops coming from my bones. "Lucy, dear," my mother called to me. I turned my head to her direction, my mother was walking to the front entrance when she came to a halt and asked me a question, "When do you think your friends will be arriving?"

I peered down to check my watch, "I am not entirely sure about that, but I gave them the address to this place." I replied to her, unknowingly. My mom wasn't bothered to the unconfident answer I gave to her, she just nodded her head and went inside the beach house. Capricorn and Loke were already unloading our belongings from the back of the trunk as Virgo followed me in the house. While Laxus was giving them a hand.

A smile came across my face when I remembered the happy moments I spent here with my parents. The memories started to appear in my mind as I stop by every room; dining room, living room, play room, etc.

I was exploring the place by myself. It was all maintained and tidy by our servants that was put in charge of keeping the area clean while we are gone. Not much have changed, it was properly organized the way it always been. For some apparent reason my heart would pound rapidly. Everywhere I go, and whatever direction I went inside the beach house, the strange feeling I would be getting always catch me off-guard. I shrug it off, as I tried my best to think about something else.

"Wow, it really has been a long time." I whispered, looking at the pictures hanging on the wall.

Once I decided to head to my own room, separated from Laxus, I threw my school bag on my bed and notice it glowing from the inside. "What in the?" I quickly walked up to it, totally forgotten that I had hidden the necklace in the same bag the time when Natsu and I were talking.

"That's right. I forgotten about Quatoria ever since I picked Laxus…" I said out-loud, "Not that we been trying to get know each other…"

I took out the stone and lifted it in front of my face, analyzing the stone, it was still glowing brightly before me. "I still don't know the reason why you still glow…" I sighed. Out of nowhere, a voice echoed.

" _Come on Lucy! You're going to miss the fireworks!"_

" _Stop taking your sweet time!"_

" _Leave your journal we will be back!"_

" _Hurry up!"_

" _It'll be fun!"_

" _The next fireworks are going to start!"_

" _Run Lucy! Run!"_

" _Geez you are so slow!"_

The voice then faded. I immediately blinked and quickly looked around my room. "What was that?!" I burst out in confusion. Virgo soon came walking in when the brightness that Quatoria was giving off a while ago, vanished. "Princess, excuse me for intruding, your guests has arrived." She announced to me. I quickly put the necklace back inside my bag, "I'll be downstairs in a minute!"

* * *

 **Lisanna's POV**

Everyone was inside making a big fuss about Lucy and her families' beach house. They all had their luggage with them when nine butlers' came to our service and took responsibility on putting our belongings to our assigned room. They were all pretty excited to spend a few days of their vacation here.

"Oh my mavis, look at the designs of this place!" Levy gawk in amusement. It was sparkling clean and well-organized, the front entrance was pretty big. You could see two stairs from each side once you entered, and in the center was a hall way that lead you to another room. "Wow, I swear I might get lost in this place." Cana chuckled. "I am pretty sure we all will." said Gajeel, who was now munching on iron that he had request from the maid.

"Woah! This place is freaking huge!" Sting exclaimed filled with excitement running throughout his whole body. He was admiring the width and length of the beach house once we entered the home. It look much bigger from the inside than it was on the outside. "Hm, I wonder how much they pay for their bills, since living near the beach is triple times the pay." Rogue tried to calculate the financial funding on top of his head. "Forget about the math, this is Lucy's place after all! You know what a big deal her father holds in today's society? A lot of people would like to be partnered with him." said Gray.

"I can't wait to go to the beach later with Gray-sama," squealed an excited Juvia who was standing next to him. The ice mage cringe and had the intentions to run away from the water wizard. But he reconsidered since he would only get lose somewhere in this big home, doing so. He tried his best to stay calm with her clinginess and how attached she was towards him. Sting and Rogue noticed the wanted help he was giving them with the grimace reaction on his face, but the two dragon-slayers decided to make him deal with the torture and frustrate him by pretending they did not notice.

"What was that? You want to be by yourself?" Sting but his hands behind his ear as he pretend to hear the wordless pleading, and Gray shot him an angry glare. "You do?! Okay!" Sting happily said as he turned around, put his arms over Rogue's shoulder and snickered. "I am going to kill you." Gray lip-synced.

Natsu was standing by next to me. I wasn't really pleased to find myself being here at a love-rivals palace. Natsu kept persuading me to come, he was so persistent that I decided to accept the invitation and give in. "Brighten up Lisanna, you'll have fun." Natsu assured me. I pouted without giving any response to my childhood friend. Natsu let out a deep sigh, I could tell he was trying to figure out ways for me to be comfortable. "I am sure that you will eventually have a great time sooner or later. It is bound to happen." He gave me one of his usual grins. I looked down on the marble flooring and blushed. "If you say so. I guess I'll try…" he ruffled my hair with his palms and messily ran through it. "Natsu!" I growled at him. "Haha, sorry, I couldn't help it!" he chuckled.

* * *

 **Loki's POV**

Loke finally came, making his appearance before them, "Finally, you all have arrived safe and sound. I am sure you are quite tired from the long car ride, why don't I lead you all to the living room with some delicious snacks already prepared for you." He gestured his hands politely to the middle entrance of the hallway, "Ladies first. Just walk straight ahead down the hall, and you'll find your way there." He smiled, pushing back his glasses. The girls walked in front of the boys as they followed Loki's instruction. Leo put a stop to Natsu before he was blended with the others, he placed his hand on his shoulder and said, "Mrs. Heartfilia would like to have a word with you. I suggest you come with me." Natsu nodded his head and tailed after him as Loke lead the fire-dragon slayer to the stairs.

The beach house had everything in each room, multiple guest's room, library, play room, indoor spa, etc. including an office. Like often, Layla enjoyed her peaceful time spending her quality moment in her own office room that is also like her own private study chamber back at home. She had a beautiful view of the ocean when she gaze out her window. Just looking at the deep color blue of the sea soothed her stress level down, and put her to ease. The graceful woman was waiting for Leo's presence when he then came in with Natsu following behind him.

"I brought him with me, milady." Loke closed the door, after Natsu stepped in. He stood in the background, not wanting to get in between the conversation that was soon going to take place. Miss Layla had a smile on her face after she let out a deep sigh of relief. "I wasn't quite sure that Lucy would've invited you here as one of her friends. I should have been more positive that it was going to happen. Thank goodness the plan is able to go on." She motion her hands on the couches in the room, beckoning him to sit down and make himself feel comfortable. Natsu sat down on the nearest sit by him, facing the maiden sitting across the other side in front of him. "Is there something important that you have to discuss with me ma'am?" Natsu politely asked, assuming that it had something to do with Lucy.

* * *

Later on, the others were soon about to head out to the beach. They already had their swim attires prepared. The girls wore their bikinis under their clothes as the boys' had a t-shirt or tank-top on and their swimming trunks.

"Wow! I wish I could've brought Lector with me! He would've had a blast!" Sting exclaimed. He had his face smudged on the transparent door frame made of glass. He was looking out at the sunny weather outside, with a clear sky and the view of the blue ocean. The light dragon-slayer went boosting off about feeling bad for leaving his exceed behind. Beside him was Rogue, also smudging his face on the glass wishing he could have brought Frosch as well. The two of them let out a deep sigh.

"Stop sulking! I left Lilly behind but I know he will understand why!" Gajeel glanced over at them, sitting down at the high chairs by the counters. The iron-dragon slayer was helping himself with a tasty lunch and more iron to munch down. Levy sat by the chair beside him drinking on a virgin pina colada with a pineapple placed on the side of the cup. The light and dark dragon slayer's glared at Gajeel with a little tear on their eyes.

"Man, too bad Erza couldn't come, I could tell she wanted to come along, but ever since Jellal came back from his schooling over-seas, she had bigger responsibilities to take." Cana stretch out her whole body out on one of the couches, hogging the whole entire thing to herself. She felt comfortable laying down on the soft cushion of the furniture and didn't want to give her spot up. So the girls sat on the opposite side, "Ah, this is paradise." Cana sighed in a dreamy tone.

"Doesn't Erza live in the same household with Jellal?" Juvia asked, hugging into Gray's arms. The ice mage nodded his head, "The prince actually found Erza when they were little. I heard she became a knight after he left overseas." Levy then joined in the conversation, "How do you know that?"

"Wendy." He answered back. The conversation went on continuously, jumping into different subjects until Lucy appeared with her white beach dress on. She greeted them with a hello, giving her best friend Levy a friendly hug. And she was surprise to see Sting and Rogue as the guests that Natsu invited. "Yo Lucy, you have a nice place here!" Sting praised her. "Indeed." Rogue nodded, siding with him.

"Thanks." She sheepishly chuckled. The blonde turned over to Lisanna who was sitting in solitude, all by herself on one of the couches next to the others. The silver-haired girl noticed her love-rival staring directly at her, she pretend not to notice as she awkwardly flicked her eyes somewhere else and fix her sitting position. The blonde teenager sat on the opening sit next to her, "I am glad you decided to come along." Lucy smiled. Lisanna cleared her throat and tried to maintain her straight composure, "I-I didn't come along for your sake, i-it was Natsu that persisted me to come." She stuttered.

"Speaking of Natsu, where is he?" Lucy spun her head around to spot someone with pink hair. She only saw the others in the same room, but there was no fire dragon slayer in sight. "Didn't he come along with you guys?" Lisanna raised one of her eyebrows at me, "What, I thought he ran off to go look for you."

"Me? I didn't even see him at all." Lucy blinked in surprise. "We might have past each other since there's so many hallways."

"Probably the idiot got lost?" Gray inquired. "That's Natsu for you." Sting jumped in the conversation.

"I am sure one of the servants will find him lingering somewhere in the hall way…" Lucy sweated, trying to keep her cool.

* * *

 **Lisanna's POV**

While Lucy was exchanging conversation with Gray and the others who supposedly joined in. Lisanna concentrated more on the blonde girl. She never took her eyes off her. As she was talking, the silver haired beauty was analyzing and observing the teenager sitting beside her.

"I want to know why Natsu picked somebody like her, instead of me…" she wondered. Lisanna was sending her intense glares that Lucy would sometimes would glance over at her, feeling a bad vibe coming towards the short haired girl. Lisanna would immediately would look away pretending to be innocent and humming to something.

Once she looked away, Lisanna would keep asking herself questions that she couldn't answer, "What the heck does Natsu like about her…?" She watched as Lucy smiled, giggled, and constantly changed facial expressions during her conversation.

"Sure she's got the looks. Sure she has a big chest. And sure that she has a nice body figure… But, I don't lack any of those either…" Lisanna flicked her eyes away after she finish comparing herself with Lucy and then began to ponder. "Where the heck did Natsu go anyway? This is the first time I witness him not being around with Lucy…"

A while later, they all decided to head out to the beach. Since the house was a few blocks away from where they were heading it was no problem for the maids to bring soft drinks for them or snacks. But the teenagers refuse to let them deal with the trouble to serve them on this hot weather, so they all came to an agreement to prepare a cooler with drinks in it, and bring a bag of chips. They also brought along other important things to carry with them. Like a beach umbrella, beach blanket, towels, sunblock, a volleyball, and etc.

Sting, Rogue, Gajeel and Gray quickly took off their tops by the time they found a suitable spot to leave their things with the girls'. They were now exposing their V cut, abs, and the muscles on the top portion of their body. Cana wiggled her eyebrows at Levy, secretly teasing her about her unrevealed feelings towards Gajeel. Juvia's eyes became heart shapes seeing her love interest showing off that hot body of his. "What a hunk!" she exclaimed as smoke were coming out of her nostrils.

They watched as the boys run off to play volleyball, Gray teamed up with Gajeel versus the twin dragon slayers. Lucy and the girls' help set up the umbrella, and spread the beach blanket for the girls to lay down on. "Hey, Natsu isn't here yet? Where do you think he went, Lisanna?" Lucy just now realized that his presences wasn't around.

"What? He likes being around you more than me. How should I know? " Lisanna rolled her eyes, her annoyance slowly arousing.

Lucy frowned, noticing her rude attitude towards her, she wasn't really sure why she was behaving like to her, but Lucy pretend it was all her imagination, "He is your fiancé." She brought up a point.

Lisanna flicked her eyes back at her, "Well, I don't know where he went." she responded, twirling the short layers of her hair.

When Natsu arrived just in time with his red swim trunks on. Lisanna quickly ran up towards him, "Natsu, where were you? You disappeared most of the time."

Natsu chuckled, "I got lost, since I got distracted by the displays in the house." He quickly manage to bring up an excuse. Lisanna groaned, "Geez, you are still careless as ever." She folded her arms in front of her. Lucy over-heard the conversation they were having a few distances away, she somehow had her eyes locked with Natsu's orbs, looking straight back at her. He grinned, "Yo Lucy!" he waved.

Lucy returned a wave and she smiled a bit, "How were you able to find your way out?" she questioned him. "Oh-uh-well…" he stuttered, "Loki found me. And he said you guys were already prepared to head out." He smacked the back of his head.

"Where's Juvia?" Natsu blinked, seeing the water mage not with them or anywhere at sight. Lucy pointed over at where the boys' where, "She's watching Gray." They saw the water mage holding a parasol over her head and cheering on for the ice wizard. "Gray~ you could do it! Juvia believes in you!" she yelled out.

Natsu glanced over at Cana who was laying down on her stomach, drinking beer. Levy was applying sunblock all over her body then squishing a certain amount of cream on the brunette's back. Natsu then looked over at Lisanna who was just staring at him. "Lisanna." He jolted. She scowled at him and crossed her arms, "You forgotten about me didn't you?" she raised her brows at him.

"No. I just didn't know you were still standing beside me." Natsu panic. Lisanna let a deep sigh escape from her lips and frowned.

* * *

 **Gray's POV**

"Hey flame brain!" Gray called out near the volleyball neat. "Are you planning to play with us or what?" The ice mage was holding the ball on his side. Sting, Rogue and Gajeel were standing beside him, talking about what game they should play with five players. Natsu quickly took the opportunity to escape the little drama between him and Lisanna, he ran towards the boys' shouting out, "You bet I am!"

"Where the heck did you go?" Gray asked once Natsu joined in their small circle. "This jerks literally left me by myself in torture." He glared at Sting and Rogue about the incident with Juvia earlier.

Rogue and Sting couldn't stop laughing, which made Gray annoyed even more, "Come on Gray, we were just playing around." Sting patted him on the shoulder. "Can't you take a joke?" Rogue grinned.

"That was not humorous at all!" Gray snap at them. "Well, someone is mad." Gajeel smirked, folding his arms in front of him. "Ya think?!" shouted the ice wizard. Natsu decided to join in the fun and tease his friend, "Well, you know, who knows you guys might end up getting married!" he snickered.

Gray's reaction quickly changed into a grimace expression, he place his arms in front of him, forming an 'X' and shouted, "No! Nu-uh! Not happening!"

The boys' literally forgotten that Juvia was standing close by, watching Gray. They turned their heads to look at the water mage who was now looking back at them with a confuse face. They quickly rotated back to give Gray an evil smile. "What the heck are you guys planning?" Gray said in a low voice.

* * *

 **Levy's POV**

The girls were all sitting down under the shades of the big sized umbrella, hiding from the sun's hot rays. The short bluenette had earphones on, jamming with her music as she read her book. The brunette; Cana, was chugging on her beer as she watched several smoking hot looking guys walking by. As for Lisanna, she was playing on the sands building a sand castle. The bluenette turned her head to look at her best friend, she notice her taking out a book big from her beach bag. Levy couldn't keep her curiosity in, and sneak up to the blonde.

She saw her flipping through the pages and remained in a particular section of the book. The short bluenette looked over her shoulders to see what she was reading. Her eyes opened wide and she smiled, "Lucy, I didn't know you were so into the legends of Quatoria!" she exclaimed. The word _Quatoria_ grabbed Lisanna's attention as she glanced over at them.

Lucy jumped, startled by the girl, not expecting her to appear right next to her. "Levy! You almost gave me a heart attack!" she placed her hands on her chest and let out a deep sigh. Feeling the rapid heartbeat pounding on her chest. "Haha, sorry about that Lucy. I didn't mean to scare you like that." Levy sheepishly chuckled.

"It's alright." Lucy shook her head, "But Levy, you know about Quatoria?" Lucy asked in a puzzled tone. "Yup. It was pretty popular back then, but I didn't know you were into those kind of stuff." Levy sat by her and took a glimpse at the big book. "This is actual my first time seeing a big book about Quatoria, I only heard stories about it back when I was little."

"Stories?" Lucy repeated. Cana then jumped in the conversation, "I haven't heard about those myths in a long time!" Cana grinned. Lucy rotated her head in a ninety degree angle to look at her. The brunette was crawling towards them, surprisingly still sober, and sat on the other side of the blonde teenager. "Myth?" Lucy said with a blank face. "Yeah. Don't you know anything about it Lucy?" The brunette asked. Levy and Cana watched as Lucy shook her head repeatedly, they were both in shock to hear that their own fellow classmate never heard about the legends, myths or the stories behind Quatoria. "You're joking right?" The brunette narrowed her eyebrows at her. "Are you serious Lu? It was famous throughout the towns. How did you found out about Quatoria if you haven't heard about it before?"

Lucy placed one of her palms behind her head, she wasn't sure how to explain to them that on her seventeenth birthday, she was given a big treasure chest the night of her party. And she found Quatoria locked away for a long time inside along with the ruby ring and diary… And upon reading her diary, she stumbled into something that made her curious to research more about the stone. "Well… How do I actually put this into words…" she mumbled. "It's actually a really long story!" she panic, giving her last statement as a reply.

"Oh geez." Levy sighed. "Anyways, Quatoria is a particular rare stone that a lot of people has been trying to get their hands on." The short bluentte explained.

Lisanna closed her eyes tight as she heard the conversation going on between the three of them. "There's different sayings about Quatoria. But they all seem pretty similar." Levy said.

"Yup. Quatoria is not like any original stone, y'know. Rumors says that Quatoria holds some type of magic. I am not really sure what it was…" Cana pondered trying to remember the magic that the stone holds.

"It's a legend." Lisanna interfered. "Simply like a folktale to be exact, like you implied that it is stories and myths. Quatoria stores all the memories you had with that person close to you," Lisanna paused as she felt the stares coming from the girls'. "Well, at least that is what I heard when I was younger. It brings you to your significant other, someone that you hold so dear in your heart. This may sound pretty cheesy. But, I am sure the legends of the stone is true."

Levy nodded her head, "I am on you with that. I heard another story of a couple who were separated for a really long time and one of them held into Quatoria. They were later reunited after fourteen years apart."

"Wow." Cana said in bewilderment, "I heard that the stone actually helps you realize your feelings for the person you love and identify them."

"Really?!" Levy buffled. "That's the first time I ever heard about that! That'll be so cool if I had the stone in my hands so it could help me realize my feelings are real or just… hm, a puppy love?"

"Hm. I know where you are going with this." Cana wiggled her brows at her, teasing her once again. "Stop it Cana!" The short bluenette blushed.

Lisanna went back on finishing her sand castle as she stated, "I actually know someone who was the holder of the stone. And I know for sure, you already know about Quatoria being extinct by now."

"Yeah. I heard about that…" Levy frowned.

"If you know someone who holds the stone, wouldn't be that the last one in mankind?" Cana stared at the silver hair beauty as she dug her hands inside the cooler.

"Yes." Lisanna nodded. "Other myths that I heard about Quatoria is said that it could also trigger memories of the past. No one really knows the exact information about the cause of it. But, they assumed it's the feelings that the holder has deep inside. If the feelings aren't strong enough, there wouldn't be any effect of Quatoria using its magic. Since there is other sayings that it could lead to different situations and causes.

Since archaeologist can't discover more of those stones, it is a big mystery for us on what it signifies. A lot of curious travelers had set in a journey to obtain Quatoria, some was never heard from again, survivors who safely returned, came home with empty hands. In conclusion, it'll remain a mystery."

"Damn." Cana simply said.

Levy glanced over at Lucy with her book wide open in front her lap. She was wondering why the blonde has been quiet all of the sudden between the conversations about Quatoria. Since she seemed so interested to figure out more about it, because she was reading the book.

"Hey, Lisanna, right?" Cana asked before opening her beer. The silver haired nodded her head as he turned her head over to the brunette. "So who was the holder that had that stone?"

Lisanna didn't reply quick but a small smile came across her face, "Natsu." Lucy's eyes widen.

Speaking of the devil, Natsu was running back to the girls to grab a cold drink inside the cooler. He was sweating all over, which made his body look like it was sparkling. Natsu had a wide grin once he gotten closer, "What are ya guys talking about?"

"Oh, we were just talking about you." Lisanna said.

"Oh yeah, about?" Natsu opened a bottle of water and drank from it. Expecting a response with a long explanation. "Nothing really." Lisanna grinned.

"Seriously?" Natsu grimace.

Cana smug, trying not to laugh as she chugged down her beer. Levy just giggled.

As for Lucy, she was staring at him with a bewildered expression. _Everything was slowly falling into place…_


End file.
